St. John’s, Cold Spring Harbor

Founded in 1825, St. John's Episcopal Church was the first religious institution to be established in Cold Spring Harbor. The first Episcopalian services were held in the little 18th century school house just above the site of the present church. The very first Vestry minutes, written in fine script on September 4, 1831, lists the founders who pledged $2,000 to build a new church. John Hewlett Jones offered to sell three quarters of an acre of land for $300 with the stipulation that "no other building than a church for the Protestant Episcopal Society shall ever be built,...the pews to be let as they think best."