“Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was well, and bid us a cordial good night. These remarks were not only perfectly audible to ourselves, but to a dozen or more persons gathered around.” 

 —Alfred Eli Beach (Scientific American, 22 Dec 1877) 

The First Congregational Church of Savannah 

The First Congregational Church of Savannah was founded in 1869, just after the Civil War ended, to serve the spiritual, cultural, and educational needs of the city’s African-American population.  

Notably, the founding congregation included whites and African-Americans, and unique to the church itself is that it emerged directly from a school founded to educate newly freed slaves. 

Like many in Savannah’s long history, the initial building housing the church burned down in one of the city’s many fires. The structure I have painted here was built in 1895 and has since undergone several historic changes. Its large and intricate stained-glass window is its most appreciated renovation. 

The current color of the front door of the church is now black. But not that long ago, it was a gorgeous red hue, and if you have been reading these weekly ‘Postcards from Savannah,’ you know my love of red doors: So, I painted the door I remembered (and loved) from the not too distant past. 

Alfred Eli Beach (1826-1896) was a successful inventor and publisher. He is best known for his initial design of the subway system in New York City. He also owned and operated Scientific American magazine. And immediately after the Civil War ended, Beach donated funds and land to the Freedmen’s Bureau to begin the educational effort that became known as The Beach Institute here in Savannah. 

Originally named the Oglethorpe Colored Free School when established in 1865, The Beach Institute was a one-of-a-kind institution of higher learning founded in Savannah that emerged directly from aid efforts started by the American Missionary Society of New York. 

A couple of years after the school’s founding, its white missionary teachers and the African-American families constituting its original student body founded The First Congregational Church of Savannah. 

The Savannah-Chatham County School District later named Alfred Eli Beach High School in his honor. 

This beautiful church is located on Whitefield Square, named after English evangelist George Whitefield, the man who became the rector at Christ Church after John Wesley returned to England. Whitefield Square was the last square created in Savannah using Oglethorpe’s original plan for the city. 

George Whitfield was best known as the founder in 1740 of the Bethesda Orphanage for boys on his plantation found just outside the Savannah city limits. After Oglethorpe left the Georgia Colony for good, Whitefield later advocated the legalization of slavery in Georgia, regrettably adopted in 1751. 

Close by the First Congregational Church stands the Beth Eden Baptist Church, which I shall paint soon. The site of Savannah’s first African-American graveyard, laid out in 1818, was located nearby, as well. The grave markers were later moved to the Laurel Grove Cemetery when developing Whitefield Square in the 1850s. Some historians believe that many former slaves remain buried beneath the square.