We are a unique and historic congregation, comprised of three individual churches that came together over the past 100 years to form one body in the St. Clement’s Episcopal Church building.
Saint Clement’s Episcopal Church—1910
St. Clement’s Episcopal Church was founded in 1910 by a group of black communicants in response to the segregated worship practices which excluded them from the Episcopal churches in Mt. Vernon and other Westchester towns, as well as in the Bronx. Wearied, but nonetheless determined to satisfy their spiritual needs, a group of families decided to hold meetings in their homes. The families included the Daniels, Smiths, Cuzzens, Cummings, and the Polittes. These parlor services, as they were called, eventually grew in numbers and it became necessary over time to procure a more permanent place of worship. After a series of locations, in the New York Diocese granted this prayerful group’s wish to officially establish a new Episcopal church in Mt. Vernon, with a Priest-in-Charge to serve them. In 1926 the present building at 126 South Ninth Avenue was completed. St. Clements is the first and oldest black founded Episcopal congregation in Westchester County.
Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church— 1665
St. Paul’s Church, located at 897 South Columbus Avenue in Mount Vernon, was founded in 1665, and was dedicated as a National Shrine of the Bill of Rights and was designated a National Historic Site by the federal government in 1980 because of its active association with the historical roots of American democracy. The site is now managed by the National Park Service. It was used as a hospital following the important Revolutionary War Battle at Pell's Point in 1776, and was the scene of various military developments for the next six years. The church stood at the edge of Eastchester village green, the site of the "Great Election" (1733), which raised the issues of Freedom of Religion and Press. The adjoining cemetery contains burials dating from 1704. Increasing industrialization of the area around St. Paul's Church in the early 20th century led to the decline of the parish. Read more about the church history here.
St. John the Divine—1912
The Church of St. John the Divine held its first chapel services in 1912 in the Vernon Heights section of Mt. Vernon and eventually built a church and a rectory located at 259 South Columbus Avenue. Its evolution follows the racial dynamics of American history and the changing demographics of Mt. Vernon. For it’s first fifty years it was a white parish. By the late 1960s its congregants reflected the change in the neighborhood, which was now predominantly black. In 1979, with the dwindling of congregants at historic St. Paul’s, St. John and St. Paul’s were incorporated. In 1982 the churches of St. John, St. Paul, and St. Clement became incorporated. After St. John’s church was destroyed by fire in 1988, the incorporated entity of Saints John, Paul, and Clement voted to worship at St. Clement’s and to work with HUD and the Episcopal Housing Corporation to build the Canterbury Commons Senior Housing development on the property where St. John’s church and rectory formerly stood.
