Spanning the centuries: Tour season approaches at Old St. Luke’s in Scott

Old St. Luke’s Church already had passed its bicentennial when Scott Quinn began driving by it circa 1976.

At first, he didn’t even notice the venerable Scott structure, it being located amid dense overgrowth off Old Washington Pike, near the long-since-replaced engineering anomaly known as the Crooked Bridge.

“It goes from summer and into the fall, and all of a sudden I start seeing, hey, there’s something back in there. And I thought, it must be a barn. I didn’t know what else it would be,” Quinn said. “Then all of a sudden, I’m seeing it better, and it doesn’t look like a barn. It’s made out of stone.”

As the vegetation continued to vanish, the sight of a cross revealed the building’s purpose, and he recalls his reaction:

“You know, God — I did actually say this — if you wanted that church ever to come back, I’d be glad to be a part of it.”

Today, as the Very Rev. Scott Quinn, he heads the board that oversees the nonprofit Old St. Luke’s Church, Burial Grounds and Garden, which is about ready to open for the season with Sunday afternoon tours from Memorial Day through Labor Day weekends.

A University of Pittsburgh student at the time of his introduction to Old St. Luke’s, Quinn was mulling what to do with regard to his future when he decided to attend the recently opened Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge.

Meanwhile, the church in Scott had served Episcopalians through 1930, the last recorded date of a resident clergyman and functioning congregation.

When Quinn became rector at Church of the Nativity in Crafton, where he served for 33 years prior to being named interim dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh — that’s where he had “Very” added to his title — he was asked to serve on Old St. Luke’s board. And at that point, he felt as if he’d come full circle from his original inclinations back in the ’70s.

The place of worship’s origins date all the way back to 1765, with services held in a log stockade on what then was the Colonial frontier. The stockade was replaced in 1790 by a frame building, and in 1852, the Right Rev. Theodore Lyman, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, ordered construction of the present stone structure.

Old St. Luke’s stands at the edge of the small Woodville neighborhood of Scott, across the appropriately named Church Street from Chartiers Valley United Presbyterian.

“The people who live around here have been just wonderful,” Quinn said. “We’ve been very appreciative of how they’ve all functioned and worked with us. They’ve been both supportive and patient.”

Patience particularly is a virtue during wedding season, as Old St. Luke’s is a time-honored venue for nuptials. In fact, a room of historic items in the church’s basement is named after volunteer wedding coordinator Norma Cappello, who organized 788 weddings during a 20-year stretch wrapping up in 2020.

The building, in fact, is full of plaques and other forms of recognition honoring people who have made an impact on the continuing history of Old St. Luke’s. Many are from the 1980s, an especially productive decade for church improvements, including contributions toward a heating system by Helen Beedle Campbell, nave lighting by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Ziegler, and restored pews by Dr. Paul Zimmerman and his wife, Florence.

Also acknowledged prominently for his efforts is the Rev. Richard Davies (1927-2020), former church vicar, president emeritus and historian.

Of primary note inside the church is the first pipe organ brought west of the Allegheny Mountains, an instrument that is celebrating the bicentennial of its 1822 construction in London, complete with its original ebony and ivory keys.

Lyman’s establishment of the stone building 30 years later included his gift of the instrument, and it was brought up to condition in 1982 by the Rev. Victor Zuck, former chairman of the Old St. Luke’s Restoration Committee.

Outside, the burial grounds include some markers that two-and-a-half centuries of Western Pennsylvania weather have made unreadable. Others bear the names of early congregants, such as Maj. William Lea (1737-1802), who bequeathed the land for Old St. Luke’s, and his daughter Jane Lea Nixon, noted in a church brochure as “the first white child born and baptized in the Chartiers Valley.”

In the 1990s, the Friends of Old St. Luke’s established a burial garden for the interment of cremated remains.

Today, the 170-year-old church building is the recent beneficiary of improvements such as sanded floors, masonry pointing and the installation of a new roof.

“There aren’t big things anymore,” Quinn said long-term projects. “We had enough money for them. We did fundraisers for all that, and it all got paid for. This is in great shape.”

For more information, visit www.oldsaintlukes.org.