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Date: 1/3/2023
AMHERST – Former University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Ken Samonds recently authored and published “A Slant of Light: The Stained Glass Windows of Grace Church,” a book about the stained-glass windows of the Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst. The windows are notable because they are among the only surviving works of William Gibson, who was the first stained glass maker in America.
Samonds said the impetus for the book arose from his curiosity regarding the church’s architecture.
“A couple of years ago Grace Church was celebrating its 150th anniversary…I was curious about the people who established the church. It was right after the Civil War, in between Lincoln’s assassination and his funeral that they had the organization meeting for Grace Church…I thought ‘Well, I’m curious about how they built this stone building.’ It’s neo-gothic architecture and a really good example of early gothic revival,” Samonds said.
His focus shifted to the church’s windows after he noticed an anomaly in the building’s records.
“I was digging around in the archives and I found the ledger book for the building committee…In the process of figuring out who was paid what when, one name came up right near the end of the construction. The building would have been finished, and this guy got paid $1,600 for what? $1,600 in those days was a lot of money. The guy’s name was William Gibson. I googled him, and lo and behold, he was a stained-glass maker from New York City, but not only that, he was the first stained glass maker in America,” Samonds said. “These windows were made 30 years after he started his business, but he was still in business and advertised himself as the father of American stained glass…I started doing research on him and did a timeline of his life, and then I became interested in those specific windows that he designed at Grace Church.”
With his interest thoroughly piqued, Samonds made the final decision to write the book when he learned of the rarity of original Gibson windows.
“I started looking for other windows by William Gibson to see how much I could find, and there is almost nothing that survived or is documented … I can only find three [outside of Grace Church]; two of them in a church in a small town in South Carolina, and one in a New Orleans church. That’s it … Hardly any of this man’s work still exists, and we have 20 windows by him. And I thought that deserved a book,” Samonds said.
The scarcity of surviving Gibson windows is most likely due to industry changes in the late 19th-century, when larger companies began to dominate the market and replace the existing stock.
“A lot of windows were changed in the 1880’s and 1890’s into the 20th century because glassmakers like Tiffany and Lafarge became the giants of the industry, and many churches took out their old windows and replaced them with Tiffany or Lafarge windows. That’s probably what happened [with Gibson’s other windows], they just got trashed,” Samonds said.
Samonds soon found out that he was not the only one interested in original Gibson windows.
“We’ve now had some experts who know a lot more about stained glass than I do who have come and looked at the windows and they’re kind of excited to find windows by Gibson,” Samonds said. “He was known for excellent quality work and he did decorating in the White House. He did major churches in New York City, but none of those that I know of still exist.”
Grace Church’s windows are notable not only for being Gibson’s creations, but also due to their unconventional content, memorializing Amherst locals who passed away rather than traditional Christian iconography, or even depicting the human form.
“Seven of them are memorials for people who have interesting connections with the church, or with Emily Dickinson…it turns out these windows had interesting stories in them…The odd thing about Grace Church’s windows is there’s no depictions of Jesus. There are no human images, other than those little cherub faces and one of an old face of the prophet Abraham. Other than that there are no people in the windows, which is quite different from my new church in Fredericksburg, VA. All of those windows are about occurrences in the life of Jesus, or the miracles, or the parables,” Samonds said.
Samonds researched every window in the church but had some personal favorites among the bunch.
“A few of my favorites are … there’s a window that I call ‘the mystery window’ because there’s no evidence on the window of who it’s memorializing. Only in one place does it say something like ‘Save me from disease,’ and other than that there’s no indication as to who or what the story is. … There’s another one that I call ‘The Good Shepherd’ window. It’s a memorial for two infants … the last two children of Ithamar Conkey, the chairman of the building committee and his wife Lucira … just really beautifully done. It’s fine art,” Samonds said.
Samonds also gave a lecture at Grace Church on Dec. 4 explaining the history and content of each window in the church, pictures of which have been included in this article. “Slant of Light” can be purchased online.
More information about Grace Episcopal Church can be found online at https://www.gracechurchamherst.org/.