The Sycamore Historic District | Location 17

By Steve Bigolin - Chronicle columnist

Established in the spring of 1840, the Congregational church in Sycamore started out very small, as was common for the time, but grew fairly rapidly. Meetings were held every other Sunday in Sycamore's original courthouse on the south side of West State Street or in members' homes. A dozen persons belonged to the church initially, including Horatio F. Page, J.H. Rogers, Samuel Alden, Daniel Dustin, David Syme and Elthom Rogers. One prominent early member of the flock, and a church deacon, was Jesse C. Kellogg, who often held the congregation's meetings in his South Main Street home before their first church was constructed. Kellogg also is known for having been a staunch abolitionist in the years leading up to the Civil War and for using his residence as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The First Congregational Church is remembered as being very active in that movement. In 1846, Capt. Eli Barnes, an early settler of the town, gave the Congregationalists the lot at the southeast corner of Main and Exchange streets on which to erect their first church. (Today that is the site of the DeKalb County Public Safety Building.) Construction lasted from 1846-1849, due to a combination of illness in the community and lack of funds. This information is contained in C.R. “Luke" McLagan's 1960 book “Nostalgia and Glee in Sycamore, Illinois." Broaching a subject By the early 1880s, continued growth of the congregation dictated the need for a new house of worship. A building site was obtained on prestigious Somonauk Street, where a striking Gothic Revival edifice would be constructed from 1884-85. The First Congregational Church - now the Sycamore Baptist Church - is one of two fine examples of 19th-century Gothic Revival religious architecture within a block of each other along Somonauk Street. St. Peter's Episcopal Church at 206 Somonauk St. is the other. The Congregationalists were apparently so impressed with George O. Garnsey's design of 1877-79 for nearby St. Peter's that they journeyed to Chicago to enlist his services as their architect. The corner location for the Congregational church allowed Garnsey free reign to align the structure in such a way as to satisfy his penchant for a prominent diagonal wall. In this instance, the diagonal feature contains the main entrance in a three-story bell tower. The tall steeple is more accurately referred to as a “broach." In his book “American Architecture: An Illustrated Encyclopedia," Cyril M. Harris describes a broach as an “octagonal spire, surmounting a square tower, the transition between being made without any intermediate architectural feature, such as a parapet." Parallel to the streets are the sides of the church; each sports a gable. The broad west gable is dominated by a large lancet-shaped stained-glass window. In the smaller north gable, which faces High Street, is a rose window positioned above a doorway. In addition to the two entrances already mentioned, a third one exists in a shorter tower at the building's southwest corner, which is capped by a steeple-like roof above a dentilated cornice. There may once have been another door on Somonauk Street in the recessed west wall that was later in-filled with stone. The 1892 “Plat Book of DeKalb County, Illinois" and the 1894 “Bird's-eye View Map of Sycamore" by C.J. Pauli of Milwaukee, Wis., both show a small parcel of open land behind the church. The 1894 image depicts the back of the structure looking much the same as the rear elevation of St. Peter's always has, but sometime between 1894 and 1899 the Congregational building underwent a major addition. The tip of the original back gable can still be made out rising above the addition, which was done in a limestone virtually identical to that used in the 1880s. The High and Maple street walls are lined with lancet-shaped stained-glass windows. From High Street, there is yet another doorway, bringing the total number of entrances to four. The building in its final form was pictured in the 1899 “DeKalb Chronicle Illustrated Souvenir Edition." Lightning strikes As with the steeple on neighboring St. Peter's, the Congregational broach was originally outfitted with four decorative false dormers. A bolt of lightning struck it during a storm in the summer of 1978, shortly after the designation of the Sycamore Historic District. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was located in the historic edifice then, and while that congregation did have the basic damage repaired, the fanciful dormers were not replaced. The 1885 “Portrait and Biographical Album of DeKalb County, Illinois" stated that construction began on the First Congregational Church's new home early in 1884. The general contractor was the local firm of Willard & McAlpine. Before the building reached completion, however, George Garnsey embarked upon a new phase of his then-20-year-long career when he took on editorship of The National Builder, a monthly publication that quickly acquired the status of being among the most influential of the era's architectural pattern books. These builders' guides, available by subscription through the mail, contained details, elevations, grounds plans and other useful information for different kinds of structures. Garnsey took matters one step further, adding cost estimates along with what materials should be used and where to obtain them. Each issue included product advertisements and a series of unsolicited testimonials from satisfied clients, as well as lists of completed buildings and their final costs. Garnsey became immensely popular with potential customers throughout the Midwest as a result of The National Builder. The types of buildings presented each month ran the gamut from private residences to churches and municipal buildings. The “February 1886 Supplement to The National Builder" showcased the plan for the First Congregational Church. The 1885 “Portrait and Biographical Album of DeKalb County, Illinois" - which included a front-elevation rendering depicting the church looking pretty much the way the Somonauk Street façade actually does - had indicated the building was anticipated to cost in the neighborhood of $20,000, or $3,000 more than St. Peter's did. (The May 2006 “Sycamore Walking Tour Guide" placed the final figure at $22,400.) In the late 1920s, the Congregational church and the Universalist church in Sycamore merged and formed the new Federated Church, now located on West State Street.

Putting together the numbers and names from past articles 1839 Platting of the City of Orange, which is later known as Sycamore. 1849 Second courthouse sited by three-man commission that included Jesse Kellogg. He later served as Sycamore postmaster and city treasurer. 1877-78 George Garnsey designs St. Peter's Episcopal in Sycamore and begins work on Isaac Ellwood's house on North First Street in DeKalb. 1881 William J. McAlpine, a general contractor from Dixon, begins several projects in Sycamore. 1905 DeKalb County Courthouse is completed. McAlpine was contractor. --- Steve Bigolin is a DeKalb County history expert.