Lancaster Presbyterian Church built with bones of Lake Erie shipwreck
April 23, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
By Irene Liguori | Buffalo News
…the church, which turns 190 this year, took shape using the bones of a famous Lake Erie shipwreck.
A massive hand-hewn cross in one of the church’s illuminated entryways is also a fragment of the first steamboat to ever ply the Great Lakes.
Fatter than railroad ties, the strong wooden beams supporting the church at 5461 Broadway and its steeple were taken from the splintered remains of the historic 338-ton side-wheeled steamboat Walk-in-the-Water, according to church historian Jim Allein.
…A terrifying storm on Lake Erie in early November 1821 drove Walk-in-the-Water onto a beach near the Buffalo Lighthouse, according to an account in the Cleveland Weekly Herald. All 75 passengers and Capt. J. Rogers’ crew survived.
Some time later, one of Lancaster Presbyterian’s 13 original members — a War of 1812 veteran named James Clark who survived the Walk-in-the-Water shipwreck — decided to salvage the boat’s timbers to help build the church.
