Church of Saint Mary the Virgin (Chappaqua, New York)
| Church of Saint Mary the Virgin | |
|---|---|
West (front) elevation, 2009
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| Basic information | |
| Location | Chappaqua, NY, USA |
| Geographic coordinates | 41°9′20″N 73°46′21″W / 41.15556°N 73.77250°W |
| Affiliation | Episcopal Church |
| Country | United States of America |
| Year consecrated | 1906 |
| Leadership | Fr. Joel Mason, rector |
| Website | The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin |
| Architectural description | |
| Architect(s) | Morgan O'Brien. |
| Architectural type | chapel |
| Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
| Groundbreaking | 1904 |
| Completed | 1904 |
| Specifications | |
| Direction of façade | west |
| Materials | stone |
| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| Added to NRHP | April 19, 1979 |
| NRHP Reference no. | 79003213 |
The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin is an Episcopal church located on South Greeley Avenue in Chappaqua, New York, United States. It was built in the early years of the 20th century on land donated by Horace Greeley's daughter Gabrielle and her husband, himself a priest of the Episcopal Church. In 1979 it was one of several properties associated with Greeley in Chappaqua listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Church of Saint Mary Virgin and Greeley Grove.
During his 1872 campaign for President, in which he ran unsuccessfully as the first and only nominee of the Liberal Republican Party against eventual winner Ulysses S. Grant, Greeley, then editor of the New York Tribune, had hosted a massive lunch and reception on the property. He had planted the large grove of evergreen trees 16 years earlier as a windbreak for his farm, part of his campaign to promote reforestation and conservation. After the election but before the counting of the electoral votes, Greeley died, and Gabrielle inherited the farm, which at the time covered most of what is now downtown Chappaqua.
When Gabrielle's daughter Muriel died in childhood in 1903, she and her husband, The Rev. Dr. Frank Clendenin, built the church as a private chapel. Architect Morgan O'Brien designed a stone Gothic Revival building that closely copied the 15th-century Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Monken Hadley, England. Two years later, an original stained glass window from that church was given to the Chappaqua copy. In 1916 the Clendenins transferred it to the Diocese of New York, with some stipulations in the deed, among them that they and their children remain buried in a small plot at the rear of the church. It has since become a parish church; its annual Strawberry Festival is one of Chappaqua's most popular events.
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