User:Choess/St.-John's

St.-John's-in-the-Wilderness, originally St. John the Evangelist Church, is an Episcopal church situated in the midst of what is now Harriman State Park in the Hudson Highlands.

The rector from the Church's founding until 1918 was Rev. Dr. Mytton Maury, author of a geography textbook popular in his time and father of the astronomer Antonia Maury.

The church did not become known as St.-John's-in-the-Wilderness until sometime in the 1920s.

Sometime after 1928, the Church began to hold a special Palm Sunday service for hikers in the remote area, at the request of Frank Place of the Tramp and Trail Club. After a lapse of a few years, it was begun again in 1935 by Walter Shannon of the Adirondack Mountain Club and has been a feature of hiking life in the State Park ever since.