File:St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Lewiston, New York - 20230303.jpg

English: St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 400 Ridge Street at North 4th Street, Lewiston, New York, March 2023. A typical example of the architectural output of the Buffalo-based partnership of Shelgren & Whitman, the design of this church can be categorized as a somewhat Modernized but still ultimately quite conservative take on the Colonial Revival, with exterior cladding in a mix of whitewashed clapboard and red brick, requisite small-paned windows and Classically-influenced ornamentation (note the pedimented entrance vestibule at the base of the tower), and narrow, spindly spire topped with a cross bottony. Belying the relative newness of the building is St. Paul's status as among the oldest extant congregations in Niagara County: the parish traces the earliest roots of its history back to the 1820s, when, lacking a qualified minister, a small band of pioneer settlers began assembling for informal worship services in a windowless, dirt-floored chapel where seating was on planks of wood set across tree stumps. The Rev. John Robertson, a missionary assigned to the area by Bishop Onderdonk of New York, soon began helming these services and, after the parish's formal establishment in 1835, oversaw the construction of a proper church building, a charming wood-frame structure which served the congregation for nearly 120 years and remains in existence today as home of the Lewiston Museum. Growth of St. Paul's was slow and steady throughout the uneventful 19th and early 20th centuries, but the combined factors of the post-World War II baby boom and the move of middle-class families from inner cities to suburbs like Lewiston accelerated things to the point that, by the early 1950s, the flock had grown to an estimated 550 members and overcrowding in the original church became a pressing crisis. Accordingly, fundraising for the construction of the present building was begun in November 1953 followed by a groundbreaking in April 1954, but the situation was of such gravity that by December of that year, services were already being held in the basement of the unfinished structure while work was still underway above ground. In October 1955, Western New York bishop Lauriston Scaife finally presided over dedication ceremonies.