The early history of St. Mark’s Church in Foxborough reveals that a strong potential existed for a thriving parish. Within five months after the first service on April 13, 1890, the new St. Mark’s Guild was making plans to raise funds for a church building. Within eight months, the eighty charter members held a St. Mark’s Fair that raised the considerable sum of $400 for a building fund. In only four years the congregation completed a graceful fieldstone church that was to be God's house to parish families for sixty-eight years, and still serves a Lutheran congregation in Foxborough.
Despite its auspicious beginnings, St. Mark’s Church was started simply as a mission of the Diocese of Massachusetts and remained so for over half a century. Worshipers gathered in earnest over the formative years, eagerly awaiting the moment of consecration on May 31, 1905. During these years St. Mark’s was led by a succession of five rectors who divided their time between Foxborough, Walpole, Wrentham, and Attleborough.
In these first years St. Mark’s ministered to the spiritual needs of people in a Community that had become a world manufacturing center of straw hats, a status that ended when a disastrous fire destroyed the main factory building in 1900. These were the years of the first church picnics, the formation of a Girls' Friendly Society, and the earliest choirs, vested in their first robes (gifts from another parish) and singing to the music of a purchased reed organ.
Two major local enterprises have influenced the history of St. Mark’s Church. The aforementioned hat industry, in full stride when the mission began, continued after the 1900 fire but at a dwindling pace in succeeding years. After a canvass by Elizabeth Henke in 1914, she reported, "The industrial condition of the town is in a most pathetic state. Only one form of industry prevails (straw hat) and that has been very poor indeed." Miss Henke reported that forty-six church people had left town in the previous four years. In spite this, 115 baptized persons were recorded in 1915, compared with sixty-eight in 1905. The second enterprise, the manufacture of industrial gauges, began in 1908 as the straw-hat industry was declining. In a few decades, the manufacture of industrial instruments grew large enough to make the town again a world center.
The early influence of this industry was small, however. Like other Americans, St. Mark’s parishioners found refuge and support in the church from the effects of World War 1. The names of nine young men were placed on the parish honor roll. During this period, the first St. Mark’s Altar Guild was organized by Louise Williams.
The Altar Guild directed its efforts toward altar care and the purchase of brass candelabra, a processional cross, and similar items. Following World War 1, the parish continued to share clergy with Episcopal churches. The Reverend Percy Barnes, also rector of Epiphany Church, Walpole, completed his three-year, part-time leadership of St. Mark’s in 1921. He was followed by the Reverend Willard H. Roots, rector of St. John's Church in Mansfield, who stayed with St. Mark’s for thirteen years. In 1927 Mr. Alfred Herschel started a lively church school, which grew during the several years under his supervision and continued from then on. A successor to Mr. Herschel, Mr. John Poole, became the first, and to date the only, parishioner from St. Mark’s to enter the ministry. He was ordained by Bishop Henry K. Sherrill in 1935. By 1937 St. Mark’s had attained independence of diocesan financial support.
St. Mark’s was to feel the effects of the local economic expansion of the fifties, reflected in a larger population. From 1895 to 1930 the record of communicants showed an increase of only ten, from forty-one to fifty-one. In 1955, however, the number had increased to 250, and, from 1955 to 1960, church attendance increased from 138 to 347 people at Sunday services. All this brought with it an influx of talented and enthusiastic parishioners who helped thrust the church into its greatest period of expansion. Mrs. C. J. Brown, who conceived the idea of a church-operated rummage store, established the Trading Post in 1946, a venture that was to contribute greatly to church finances. Mildred Smith contributed for over three decades her skills in bookkeeping and administration. The Reverend Gibson Winter was rector from 1946 to 1949, when the parish accumulated the resources to purchase a rectory so that the Reverend Louis W. Pitt, Jr., could be called as the first full-time rector in 1949. Mr. Pitt was followed by the Reverend John C. Harper (rector 1954-1957).
During these years the parish alleviated through renovation, but did not eliminate, the growing problem of overcrowding. Hoel Bowditch was an instrumentation inventor who applied his creative mind to church design of all types, eventually making the basic design for the second attractive new church building to be constructed for St. Mark’s. A planning committee had already been studying since the late fifties possible sites for a new church building. A special parish meeting in 1959 voted to obtain land on South Street, only a few blocks from the 70-year-old fieldstone church.
The site was a gift from Florence A. Carpenter, a descendant of an early town citizen. On May 16, 1962, the Right Reverend Anson P. Stokes, Jr., conducted the service of dedication for the new brick building. Among those present were the Reverend Frank N. Johnston, who had guided the parish through planning, construction, and transition; architect Alden Robbins and building Committee chairman Hoel Bowditch; Colin Shewring designer of the liturgical interior and a member of the Warham Guild of London; and Charles E. Burrell, Jr., craftsman, who built the liturgical furnishings. Bowditch, with wife Mary, was instrumental in securing a Paccard Bell and Pipe Organ for the new church. The old building could seat 160 worshipers; the new church held 300 in the nave and had space for 250 more in the undercroft, plus a large common room and attractive classrooms. St. Mark’s now had a promising future in uncrowded, inspiring surroundings. A daytime nursery and kindergarten, begun in 1961, enjoyed the new undercroft space. The nursery was to serve the community for nearly twenty years. In 1965 the church responded to the civil rights movement, sending the rector and four members to march in Selma, Alabama. Motivated by the commitment to civil rights, parishioners organized to bring the Metco program to Foxborough in September 1971, and also in that year participated in the Boston low cost Housing Corporation program, loaning $16,000 from a bequest of Bertha Tracy. In 1972 St. Mark’s financed its own low-cost housing venture in Foxborough constructing a home that was sold to a Boston family.
Not all was positive in the new church. The Vietnam War Period (1966-1972) extracted its toll of strain and division among parishioners. Another deterrent to parish life occurred in August 1973 when a fire badly damaged the new church's interior. Repairs took several months. The Reverend Russell Ayers became rector the month following the fire, replacing the Reverend Frank N. Johnston, who had been rector for ten years. Mr. Ayers initiated church-in-the-round services in the undamaged undercroft before the congregation eventually returned gratefully to the restored nave.
St. Mark’s Church in the seventies and early eighties has matured, with innovative programs and increasing financial strength. Its programs have included:
Women's equality became very much a part of St. Mark’s history in the seventies. The first woman assistant rector, the Reverend Patricia D. Handloss, was appointed in 1977 and served briefly. The next assistant rector, the Reverend Margaret McNaughton, was appointed in 1983. Women first became members of the vestry in 1970, and licensed women lay readers have served since 1970, as have girl acolytes.
Only a short time remains in St. Mark’s first century of existence. As in the 1890s, the energy of the Holy Spirit is still very much in evidence.