Grace Church Origins

The country was still engaged in the Civil War in January 1865 when pastor W..J. Stevenson and 25 parishioners assembled in the lecture room of old St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church on Market Street near Seventh in Wilmington.

Out of that gathering came a solemn resolution "to encourage the erection of a new church somewhere in the improving western section of the city." The impetus for this resolution was the growing need to expand the Sunday School mission work of the old church. In 1865, Wilmington’s population was approximately 30,000. Grace Church was built at the city’s limits, within blocks of pastureland. Grace Church is the offspring of St. Paul’s Methodist Church.

Original Construction

Thomas Dixon, (1819-1886) a native of Wilmington, was chosen to be the architect for the new structure. Principally working in Baltimore, he designed the Second Presbyterian Church, the County Court House, and the jail. Groundbreaking was October 1864. Local schools let children out of class so that they could watch the workmen raise the tower framework.

Later, in 1871, Dixon designed Wilmington's Grand Opera House and in 1872 the Mount Vernon Place Church in Baltimore. Mr. Dixon employed both the "English decorative gothic" and "high Victorian."