St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square

St. John's Episcopal Church
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
U.S. National Historic Landmark District Contributing Property
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Location	1525 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C.
Coordinates	38°54′1.41″N 77°2′9.91″W / 38.9003917°N 77.0360861°W / 38.9003917; -77.0360861Coordinates: 38°54′1.41″N 77°2′9.91″W / 38.9003917°N 77.0360861°W / 38.9003917; -77.0360861
Built	1815–1816
Part of	Lafayette Square Historic District (#70000833)
NRHP reference #	66000868
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966
Designated NHL	December 19, 1960
Designated NHLDCP	August 29, 1970

1525 H Street, N.W.

St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square is a historic Greek Revival Episcopal church designed by Benjamin Latrobe and located at Sixteenth Street and H Street NW, in Washington, D.C. It is across Lafayette Square from the White House. Every sitting president has attended the church at least once since it was built in 1816, starting with James Madison. With the exception of Richard Nixon, every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has attended spiritual services on Inauguration Day, many at St. John's. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Two years after Maryland had ceded to the United States the territory constituting the present District of Columbia, the legislature of that state, appreciating the necessity of providing for the spiritual needs of the Protestant Episcopal inhabitants who were to reside there, and on their petition, passed the act of 26 December, 1794, creating a new parish, to be known as Washington Parish-to be composed of so much of the Rock Creek Parish, in Montgomery County, Maryland, as St. John's Parish, in Prince George's County, Maryland, as was within the boundaries of the new city of Washington. In the next year a vestry was elected by the Episcopalians of the eastern end of the new parish, and the Rev. Mr. Ralph was appointed rector of the charge then organized, and took his seat in the Maryland Convention of 1795. This congregation occupied a small building on D Street and New Jersey Avenue, in the southeastern part of Washington, which since 1780, had been used as a chapel of ease connected with St. John Parish in Prince George's County. In 1806 a vestry was elected from the people worshipping at this chapel, and, in 1807, a new church was established in that vicinity, which was named Christ Church.