History of Our Church

The roots of All Saints’ Memorial Church, an Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New Jersey, can be traced to 1861 when weeknight services were held at the Riceville (now Navesink) school house by the Rector of Trinity Church in Red Bank, The Reverend William N. Dunnell. At this time, the Navesink Highlands was becoming an area of summer houses built by well-to-do families from New York City and northern New Jersey. All Saints’ was constructed in 1863 as a memorial to Jennette E. Stephens Edgar and other family members, by three such gentlemen: her father John H. Stephens, her husband James A. Edgar, and her brother-in-law Charles Milnor.

The Church and its major buildings were designed by Richard M. Upjohn, a New York City based architect and son of Richard Upjohn, a prominent architect of more than 35 Protestant Episcopal churches throughout the country including Trinity Church in New York City and St. John’s Church in Boston. Both father and son are recognized for their contributions to the English Gothic Revival in American architecture, of which the All Saints’ complex is a prime example.

The Church building was completed in 1864, followed by the Parish House in 1865, the Rectory and Rectory Barn in 1870, and the Carriage sheds sometime before 1890. The cemetery, designed in English landscape style typical of the rural cemetery movement popular in the mid-19th century, features handsome monuments and mausoleums. The historical integrity of the individual buildings as well as the overall grounds contributed to All Saints’ Memorial Church being placed on the New Jersey State Register of Historic Places in 1973, the National Register in 1974, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1988.