Old Mariners' Church

Miss Charlotte Ann Taylor died on February, 1840, bequeathing all her property to her sister, Mrs. Julia Ann Anderson, with a verbal understanding that it be used to establish a mariners' church similar to the seamens' bethels then in vogue on the East Coast. Mrs. Anderson died on October 28, 1842, with a provision in her will that the residue of her estate be used to construct a stone church for mariners at the corner of Woodward Avenue and Woodbridge Street, a location close to the Detroit docks.

The legislature of Michigan chartered a corporation to carry out the provisions of the will in 1848. Calvin N. Otis of Buffalo, New York, was hired as architect and Hugh Moffat of Detroit as contractor. Construction was quickly completed, and the church was consecrated on December 23, 1849.

It was realized that financial support for such a church might be difficult to secure, especially since the incorporation act specified that the pews were to be forever free of rent. Accordingly, the church was planned to have commercial establishments on the first floor whose rent would finance the church's operation: the Detroit Post Office moved into the church and remained for ten years. A wholesale grocery later occupied the same space. In 1892 the floor of this concern was said to be 'soaked with syrup and juices, and an air of mingled fragrances rises to the nostrils.' Mariners' Church did not function as planned.

An early pastor reported that although seamen attended during the winter, there were few to be seen during the shipping season. Not many years after it was completed it was reported that attendance was falling as people moved farther from the center of Detroit. Finally, in 1915 the mission of Mariners' Church was broadened to be a 'home and port for storm tossed humanity.' Construction of the Detroit Civic Center in 1955 necessitated removal of Mariners' Church. The three-thousand ton church was moved about nine hundred feet to its new location at the east end of the Civic Center Grounds.

Traffic was held up on Woodward Avenue, the main traffic artery of Detroit, for twenty-one days. Mariners' Church is one of the oldest churches of Detroit. It was the first of a series of gray limestone churches that were to dominate Detroit ecclesiastical architecture for the next quarter century.

Mariners' Church is a two-story Gothic Revival building about one hundred feet by fifty feet, with adjoining bell tower. The walls are of rough, gray, rubble limestone quarried downriver from Detroit and laid in natural cement mortar. Buttresses and Tudor-arched windows carry out the Gothic details; a fifteen by twenty-five foot window is located in the chancel at the east end of the building while a twelve foot circular window is in the west wall. A wooden belfry, battlements, and pinnacles were once features of the building which in the course of time have disappeared.

The low-pitched gable roof, supported by Howe trusses visible in the auditorium, was once covered by wood shingles but now consists of built up asphalt. The bell tower, constructed in 1955, is stylistically in harmony with the church and was built of re-used material whose patina closely matches that of the original stonework. The interior framing is of white pine; the inch-thick flooring, also of this material, is random width, tongued and grooved. All the woodwork in the main auditorium is of select walnut including the wainscoting, altar, and organ.

The ceiling is white pine painted pale blue with a stenciled design. A nautical decor is featured in the interior of the church. A small service stairway toward the front of the church is lettered 'Hatchway to Main Auditorium'. Extending from the top of the side walls are national and religious flags.

The baptismal font shaped like a ship's capstan, and the altar's oak top, made from a section of old wharf, also add to the marine atmosphere.