1927 Photo Of 32nd & Clearfield

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St. James The Less Episcopal Church

Began in 1846 at Mount Peace, home of Robert Ralston. Today Mount Peace is a cemetery.

The edifice of the church was located at Nicetown Lane (Hunting Park Ave) and Summer Street (Clearfield Street). These grounds were donated by Robert Ralston and were once a part of his Mount Peace Estate.

In 1887, the parish house was built by John Dobson, an East Fall's resident who lived in a house on Westmoreland Street and owned the Dobson Mills with his brother James.

The last buildings to be built as part of the church were erected in 1917.

St. James The Less Episcopal Church And Grave Yard

I remember taking walks through the grounds of this church and cemetery as a child when I lived in the East Falls Section of Philadelphia. The buildings always amazed me. And of course, I never feared a cemetery and always liked to walk through them. So it is no surprise that I continue to do this sort of thing today but for different reasons. As a child, I played in the cemetery's grounds. As an adult, I research in them but it is not to say that I do not enjoy its peaceful vast and beautiful grounds and buildings.

Recently, I took a walk through St James The Less. It is very much the same place I remember as a child. Some things have changed like the politics of this religion which forced the present congregation to leave after more than a hundred years at this church. Present Day Episcopalians have tried to force new rules to a very old traditional functioning Eiscopalian church. After a lengthy court battle, the congregation picked up and left to set up "church" in Belmont Hills because it simply refused to change what they believed in for the last hundred or so years. Thus leaving the existing buildings and grounds with a very unknown future. I am glad the place was made a Historical Landmark years ago because it does guarantee its existence in its present form.

St James The Less has touched the lives of many in Philadelphia. The Wanamakers are buried here as are the Biddles. It also has a history in my paternal side of the family because my great grandfather Charles Schroeder worked these grounds as a grave digger. He was also a sexton at the church and rang the bells. After my grandmother Marie Schroeder Weleski died in childbirth in 1945, my great grandfather Charles Schroeder took the eldest son, my father under his wing and had him help out at the church. Granted the Schroeders were German Lutheran and my father was being raised Catholic but it did not matter that St James The Less was Episcopal. The cemetery grounds were once also a part of Laurel Hill Cemetery and since Charles worked for Laurel Hill it is not a surprise that he also worked for St James The Less.

The church and its cemetery have a rich history dating back to 1831. The stones on the graves tell their own story.