ual interests of the Congregationalists
in Harlem in New York.[44]

Some Negroes, too, had begun to look with more favor upon the
Protestant Episcopal church. As early as 1866 cottage meetings were
held by C. H. Hall, rector of the Epiphany, with the assistance of J.
Vaughn Lewis, rector of St. John's Church. This movement went to the
extent that steps were taken looking to the establishment of a church
and the purchase of a lot on which an edifice was to be built. At this
juncture Mrs. Parsons, a communicant of St. John's parish, donated a
lot for the purpose on 23d Street, and Secretary of War E. M. Stanton
contributed a frame building in 1867. From 1867 to 1873 several white
clergymen officiated, but the selection of a colored minister to take
charge of the work was indispensable. Efforts to this end soon
followed. Among the clergymen considered were William H. Josephus, a
talented West Indian, and William J. Alston, who had been rector of
St. Phillip's in New York and of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. John
Thomas Johnson, a progressive Negro citizen who in the reconstruction
times was Treasurer of the District Government, began on behalf of a
number of interested people a correspondence with Dr. Alexander
Crummell with a view to securing him as the spiritual leader of these
Episcopalians. This effort resulted in bringing Dr. Crummell to
Washington in June, 1873.

The people almost instantaneously rallied to Dr. Crummell's support
and the outcome was the determination to build a church. A sinking
fund association, composed of young people from different sections of
the city, and in which other denominations were represented, was a
most active factor. The enthusiasm was intense. The corner stone was
laid in 1876 at Fifteenth and Sampson Streets, near Church Street, and
work on the new building went rapidly on. Dr. Crummell meanwhile
traveled extensively throughout the North and East for funds in aid of
the new movement. Such was his success that the first services in the
new building were held there on Thanksgiving Day, November 27,
1879.[45]

With the opening of St. Luke's a new opportunity presented itself at
St. Mary's, where the congregation under the administration of Mr. O.
L. Mitchell developed into an institutional church. It was consecrated
December 11, 1894, by Bishop William Paret, then of Maryland, assisted
by Bishop Penick and Dr. W. V. Tunnell, of Howard University, who
preached the sermon. St. Mary's i