Downtown Plainfield Church Receives Landmark Status

PLAINFIELD, IL — A downtown Plainfield church is now officially a landmark. With a building that dates back to 1850 and a congregation that traces its roots back to 1834, Plymouth Congregational Church, 24022 W. Lockport Street received the designation as Village of Plainfield trustees unanimously approved an ordinance on Monday.

The Greek Revival structure has been updated several times over the decades. An east wing with narrow wood siding was added in 1906, and a basement was excavated in 1946 for Sunday school facilities, a fellowship hall and a kitchen. A recreation of the church's distinctive tall spire was rebuilt in 1973, though it is now clad in aluminum siding because the original spire was damaged by lightning in 1887. The west wing was added in 2002.

For nearly 70 years, the church has been home to downtown Plainfield's annual Lions Club creche lighting, which ushers in the Christmas season each year.

The landmark nomination form outlines Plymouth Congregational's history, which got its start in the 1830s before the church was built in 1850 — and the property it sits on purchased for just $40:

Though the Church has been expanded and modified, it is recognized as the oldest continually used Church in Will County. The Congregational Society purchased a one-half acre site in July 1849 for $40 from Adah Royce. The Greek Revival-styled building featured an imposing windowless south façade with butt-jointed wood siding to replicate stone and a recessed portico supported by Ionic columns flanking nearly nine-foot double doors with a hewn timber frame resting on a foundation of locally quarried limestone. Three multipaned double-hung windows with shutters lined the east and west walls and a steeple that was an octagon stepped belfry with paired pilasters and a copper spire was added a few years after the dedication of the Church. Construction began during the Spring of 1850 and was completed in March 1851. In the 1906 remodeling project, the Church replaced its original siding with narrow wood siding with a portion of that original 1906 exterior clapboard siding now visible inside a west hallway after the 2002 addition. The centrally located entryway to the sanctuary is part of the original portion of the Church and this original section is also historically significant due to its use as an enlistment center at the beginning of the American Civil War. On Sunday, April 15, 1861, two days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, the Church opened its doors after morning services and began registering men – over 70 enlisted and within ten days the recruits were on their way to Cairo, Illinois, to be trained as part of Captain Edward McAllister’s 10th Illinois Infantry Regiment."

The congregation itself has ties to the anti-slavery abolition movement, according to landmark nomination documents:

Daniel Chapman, a farmer and teacher from New York, enrolled as a congregationalist at Oberlin and was ordained in 1842 ... In 1845, Chapman was offered a position to preach in Plainfield at log school shared with Methodists. In 1849 Chapman advocated that the congregational members consider building their own house of worship. Adah Royce sold a half-acre parcel to the Trustees of the Congregational Church where construction of the church began in 1850. ...

The majority of pioneer families making their way to Plainfield and its environs came from those areas of the East that were located north of the Mason-Dixon line where many residents were opposed to the institution of slavery ... Chapman became a member of the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society participating in lectures and programs dealing with the abolishment of slavery as well as becoming a member of the American Missionary Association. ... Chapman’s participation in several meetings in central Illinois and his election as the chairman of a convention that organized the General Congregational Association of Illinois in 1844 that strongly condemned slavery certainly encouraged abolitionist members of the Plainfield Congregational Church to seek out Chapman as the leader of their Church.

Monday's vote came after another unanimous vote Jan. 7 directing the village attorney to draft an ordinance designating the church as a landmark.

Photos via Village of Plainfield documents