Christ Church, Lonsdale, RI (Mss. Gr. 95)

Historical Information

Christ Church dates its founding to 1833, when Episcopalians in the mill village of Lonsdale, then part of Smithfield but now part of Lincoln, R.I., began holding services in the village schoolhouse. In January of 1834, worshippers gathered at the school house and formally organized themselves into the Episcopal parish of Christ Church. The parish was accepted into the Diocesan Convention in June of the same year. In early 1835, the Lonsdale Company, whose mills employed most of the parishioners, contributed $2,000 toward the construction of a church, as well as the land on which to build it. The church was completed in the late summer of 1835.

Christ Church has remained a part of the Lonsdale community since 1835. When the first church burned to the ground in 1883, the Lonsdale Company built a new larger Christ Church on the same site in 1883-84. It is in that latter church that the parishioners of Christ Church worship today.