User:GravityUp/St. Paul's Cathedral, Fond du Lac



St. Paul's Cathedral is the mother church of the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac and is located in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin which is the see city of the diocese.

Early Years (1848-1865)
On September 3, 1848, Rev. Joshua Sweet, the Episcopal clergyman for the village of Fond du Lac, went to the courthouse to formally organize St. Paul’s Church. The first congregation included some well-known names, such as, Doty, Tallmadge, Ruggles, and McWilliams. These names would used later on as street names within the city of Fond du Lac. They worshiped in various makeshift locations until they had a building of their own.

Later Years (1866-1913)
In 1866, the expanding congregation moved to its current location. In January 1884, the building burned down and was replaced between the years of 1885 – 1887, with the present structure.

From the years 1889-1912, Bishop Charles Chapman Grafton worked to complete the interior of the building. Some of the earliest acquisitions were a pulpit (created by a local stone carver named Robert Powrie), a brass eagle lectern, and the German Victorian carvings from 1893-1894. The carvings came from Munich and included: the twelve Apostles, St. Paul, and twenty-five angels.

The Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel
It was Bishop Grafton’s request that he be buried within the walls of the Cathedral, so in the year following his death on August 30, 1912, the area known as the Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel was redone. The burial site features a white marble and red porphyry sarcophagus, supporting a life-size figure of the Bishop. The chapel became the permanent site of his burial on August 30, 1913.