St. John's Episcopal Church - Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska

The bishop who consecrated St. John's had been a Chicago pastor. Robert Harper Clarkson was born at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1826, was rector of St. James's Episcopal Church in Chicago, and stayed in that city to minister to the sick during the cholera outbreak of 1849. He was consecrated Missionary Bishop of Nebraska and Dakota on November 15, 1865, and helped establish Trinity Cathedral in Omaha, consecrated eighteen years to the day later. He died in Omaha on March 10, 1884, and is buried at the cathedral.

What the plaque says

St. John's Episcopal Church Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska The congregation organized in May 1881, building a church that fall on Oak Street east of the Harvard Courier building. The first service was in March 1882, with consecration by Bishop Robert Clarkson, Missionary District of the Platte. Five persons were confirmed. The church was moved to the southeast corner of Beech Street and Harvard Avenue in 1895. Methodist, Congregational, and Christian Churches once also stood at that in- tersection. Stained glass windows were given by the P.H. Updike family. St. John's is Harvard's oldest church edifice. St. John's Congregation Dr. Don R. Gerlach Nebraska State Historical Society, 2016

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer — 23 mi
  Edward Durell Stone's island pavilion in Grand Island and an 1890s railroad town of moved buildings, among them the cottage where Henry Fonda was born in 1905.

More markers nearby

• Harvard's 1915 Carnegie Library — steps away
• Midair Collision of B-17 Bombers — steps away
• Harvard Army Air Field — steps away
• Harvard Jail — 0.2 mi