About

Grace Church is the oldest Episcopal Church in continuous use in the Diocese of Chicago. An Episcopal Service was first held on the banks of the Fevre (now, Galena) River in 1826, the year Galena was incorporated as a town.

From the small group gathered on the riverbank that Sunday a congregation was informally begun. It met in various homes whenever an Episcopal clergyman came to town. In 1835, it was formally established as a parish and named Grace, after its patron church in Rhode Island. At first the congregation met in the county courthouse and later above a downtown storefront before moving in 1836 to a wooden chapel located on Bench Street. An organ, purchased in 1838 from the Henry Erben Organ Company in New York, was first used in the Bench Street church and is still in use today. The marble baptismal font was also used in the chapel, which was consecrated by Missionary Bishop Jackson Kemper in 1938.