page_title: Christ Church, Newton
section_title: Establishment
hierarchical_section_title: Christ Church, Newton / History / Establishment
caption_attribution_description: English: The interior of Christ Church, Newton, located in Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey, taken from the back of the sanctuary facing the altar.
context_page_description: Christ Church, Newton, also known as Christ Episcopal Church, is a Christian house of worship located on the corner of Church Street and Main Street in Newton, New Jersey. It is a parish overseen by the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The congregation first met on 28 December 1769 and was granted a charter by New Jersey's last Royal Governor William Franklin on behalf of Britain's King George III. Christ Church is the oldest church in Newton and the third oldest parish in the Diocese of Newark.
  The current church building, erected in 1868–1869, is the second structure built at the site, and is an example of the Broken Ashlar or Rustic mode of Gothic Revival architecture patterned after medieval English parish churches. The interior nave features several stained-glass windows depicting scenes from the life of Jesus of Nazareth fabricated by J&R Lamb Studios. On 24 September 1992, Christ Church, Newton was included on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places as part of the Newton Town Plot Historic District which was approved and entered on the National Register of Historic Places on 12 November 1992.
context_section_description: In a 1770 letter, the Rev'd Dr Thomas B. Chandler, rector of St John's Church in the provincial capital Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth), reported that he had visited Sussex County in the northwestern part of the province of New Jersey in November 1769 and found that there were 50 families belonging to the Church of England in the region. Chandler reported that "they frequently assemble in private houses and read the Liturgy" and that an Anglican clergyman "had never been in those parts before." Many of these families met at Newton, the county seat of Sussex County, on 28 December 1769, to establish an Anglican parish.
  On 15 August 1774, Christ Church was formally incorporated as The Rector, Church Wardens, and Vestrymen of Christ's Church at New Town, in the county of Sussex and province of New Jersey. The colony's last royal governor, William Franklin, granted and signed a charter on behalf of Britain's King George III. The congregation petitioned the East Jersey Board of Proprietors, a colonial land agency, asking for their assistance to establish a church. The board granted a warrant for 200 acres (81 ha) of land yet unappropriated in Sussex County to serve as an income-generating glebe to support the church. The tract chosen by the congregation was located approximately 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south of Newton (in present-day Fredon Township, then part of Hardwick Township) and conveyed to the church on 16 December 1774 by the colony's last royal attorney general, Cortlandt Skinner, and John Johnston. Jonathan Hampton (1716–1777), a landowner, coachmaker, and merchant from Elizabethtown, deeded lands from his surveyed town plot to the congregation on 14 December 1774 "for the encouragement of the Episcopal religion...and toward the maintenance & support of a parson officiating in said church".
caption: Interior of Christ Church, facing the altar and chancel
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A560", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2015:01:21 11:27:06", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4658", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "16/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:01:21 11:27:06", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:01:21 11:27:06", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "189/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "107/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "107/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "7889/1000", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2592", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3334", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "11520", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1944000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}