Colonial beginnings

The first notice of Church of England services in Stamford was in 1705, when George Muirson, the rector of Rye, New York, made excursions eastward into the towns within the Connecticut colony. Owing to the conditions of the country at the time, it was necessary for Mr. Muirson to be escorted on these ecclesiastical excursions “fully armed.” Adherents of the Church of England in the towns of Greenwich and Stamford seem to have had occasional ministrations from other clergymen, but no settled minister.

The wardens wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in London, asking it to help them in their efforts to get a clergyman of the Church of England to minister to them; the wardens hoped that the Society would look favorably on their desire that Ebenezer Dibblee, a Congregational minister from Danbury who had become an Anglican convert, should receive Holy Orders in England and be sent by the Society back to St. John’s Church. The Society agreed, and Mr. Dibblee traveled to London for ordination. He returned to Stamford in 1748 and became rector of the church, holding that position for 51 years until his death in 1799. Until the American Revolution, Mr. Dibblee remained a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, ministering to a parish that included all of Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, and New Canaan. During the revolution, many Anglicans remained loyal to the Crown, and many Stamford Anglicans emigrated to Canada. Mr. Dibblee stayed in Stamford and held services in parishioners’ homes during the war.

In 1742, an appeal was made to the town of Stamford for a grant of land on which to build a church. As the result of this appeal, the town agreed to give the professors of the Church of England “a piece of land to set a church upon,” at the southwest corner of the present lot help by St. John’s parish. “It was at that time a rude ledge of loose rock, bounded on the north and east by an almost impassable swamp,” from which it it would appear that the Puritan town fathers did not much favor the Church of England. The Anglicans, however, thanked the town for the omen, that they were founded upon a rock. The cornerstone was laid in 1743, and the church was so far finished in 1747 that it could be used; the congregation also bought a tract of land near the Mill (Rippowam) River for a glebe farm, whose revenues could be used to support a minister of the gospel.

The nineteenth century

By the early part of the nineteenth century, the congregation had outgrown its eighteenth century building. The second St. John’s Church was built in 1842 just to the west of the first church. During the rectorship of the Ambrose Seymour Todd, St. John’s Church responded to Stamford’s growth by beginning what would become its longstanding tradition of outreach to the needs of the city. In 1859, the parish established the Missionary and Benevolent Society, whose purposes were to establish mission chapels to minister the new residents who flooded an industrializing Stamford. The Society founded St. Andrew’s Chapel, which became an independent parish in 1865. Its second mission was in Springdale, where Emmanuel Chapel was built in 1867 and remained a mission until 1947. In 1879, St. John’s rector, Dr. William Tatlock, began holding services in homes in Stamford’s South End; St. Luke’s Chapel was built there ten years later.

In 1867 the Parish acquired the two acres adjacent to the church site. The parish building was built in 1871, and the rectory was completed in 1885. Planning had begun for a new church building when the church was destroyed by fire on January 24, 1890. Construction on a new church began in May and the first services were held in the new church in November 1891.

Throughout the nineteenth century St. John’s responded to the changes brought about by of industrialization, immigration, and urbanization in Stamford. The church was used by immigrant groups for services in Swedish and German. In 1882, St. John’s Church House, Stamford’s first hospital, was established. The Church House, located in the South End, accepted patients without regard to religious or ability to pay. In 1898, the Ferguson Memorial Building was built for the Church House next to St. Luke’s Chapel.

The twentieth century

Throughout the twentieth century, St. John’s Church continued its evolving engagement with the community in the twentieth century, as it continued Prayer Book worship and witness to the Gospel.

Due to gasoline rationing during World War II, families in the Long Ridge Village area of northern Stamford found it difficult to make the 20-mile round trip journey to St. John’s. To meet the needs of these parishioners, in 1942, the Rev. Canon Stanley Hemsley, rector from 1942-74, began to hold services in that area of Stamford. In 1945, Episcopalians bought the old Universalist meeting house on Old Long Ridge Road and gave the building to the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut as a mission church; the first Episcopal services were held by Canon Hemsley in what would become St. Francis Church on Christmas Eve, 1945.

Some uses of St. John’s buildings have changed from time to time to meet the needs of the church and the community. After Stamford Hospital opened in 1896, St. John’s clinic closed. The Church House building was used subsequently for religious and social services under various organizational umbrellas. In 1986, the parish leased the building to St. Luke’s Community Services, an independent non-sectarian human services agency established as a partnership between St. John’ Church, Christ Church in Greenwich, St. Luke’s Parish in Darien, and St. Mark’s Church in New Canaan, which has evolved into Inspirica, one of the largest human services agencies in Fairfield County. St. John’s buildings have also been enlarged and altered as the Church’s programs have changed. In 1903, the parish building was modified to add a gymnasium and reading room for the Church’s work with young people. A tower and eleven-bell chime were added in 1917. A building connecting the parish house and the rectory was constructed in 1954, which included a kitchen, dining room, and Sunday School rooms. The old rectory, renamed Hemsley House after the eighth rector, has been used for church offices since 1974.

In the twentieth century, the parish sold the last of its eighteenth-century glebe lands, except for the cemetery on Franklin Street, and is has continued to enlarge the church site. By 1975, the church owned its entire block. That year the parish decided that St. John’s should remain in its downtown location, despite the significant exodus of Stamford’s population to its suburbs and the devastating effects of urban renewal on the cityscape. Under the guidance of the Rev. Douglas Theuner, rector from 1974-86, the parish leased two acres of its three-acre site for a mixed-use development of offices, apartments and shops. At that time, the parish established the St. John’s Community Foundation to receive some of the income from the rental of the parish land to Canterbury Green. The foundation provides grants to agencies for projects that address broad social issues in Stamford.

Rectors

• Ebenezer Dibblee, 1748-1799

• Jonathan Judd, 1812-1822

• Ambrose Seymour Todd, 1823-1861

• Walter Mitchell, 1861-1866

• William Tatlock, 1866-1896

• Charles Morris Addison, 1897-1919

• Gerald A. Cunningham, 1920-1942

• Stanley F. Hemsley, 1942-1974

• Douglas E. Theuner, 1974-1986

• Leander S. Harding, 1989-2005

• James R. Wheeler, 2007-2019

• Andrew A. Kryzak, 2022-present (Priest-in-Charge)