Christ Episcopal Church has graced the corner of Hampton and East Union Street in Sag Harbor since 1885, but the congregation dates to 1845 when twelve residents, professing the Protestant Episcopal faith, assembled for worship in a room on the second floor of the Arsenal building on Union Street.  A member of this group conducted the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer.  This group petitioned the Episcopal Diocese of New York and New York State to establish Christ Church.

The first home of Christ Church was the former Presbyterian meeting house built in 1817.  It was located on the southeast corner of Sage and Church streets where the Watchcase condominium complex is today.  In the summer of 1846, the Vestry of Christ Church bought the meeting house for $2,100 and furnished it with an organ, chandeliers, baptismal font and silver Communion vessels.  The sum of $2,000 was spent to remove the gallery and high pulpit and add a prayer desk, altar, pulpit and lectern and paint the interior and exterior.  The interior walls were adorned with marble wallpaper.   The physical labor and evangelism of members were affirmed on December 16, 1846 when The Right Reverend Stillman Levi Ives, Bishop of North Carolina, consecrated the building and dedicated its content for worship. 

The congregation was severely affected by the end of the whaling industry. Worship attendance and membership declined, but the congregation found ways to weather this challenge. By 1884, membership and attendance rebounded so plans were made for a new church.  The property, owned by Mr.Winters, was purchased in 1884 for the sum of $2,200.  The house on the site was moved east on Hampton Street and is now directly across the street from Sag Harbor Elementary School. The old church was sold for $1800 to a chapter of the Masons and the congregation worshipped in the village hall until the new church was built.

The church was consecrated by Bishop Littlejohn on March 22 in 1885. Around this time, Mr. And Mrs. James Herman Aldrich, who owned the Maycroft estate in North Haven began worshipping at Christ Church.  The Aldriches soon played major roles in the church and were generous benefactors in the years that followed.  Mr. Aldrich became the Senior Warden.  The couple presented a bishop’s chair to the church.  Mary Aldrich, wife of James, paid off the $1,200 mortgage.  In 1893, Mary secured permission from the Vestry to enlarge the chancel, adding a sacristy and an octagon baptistery.  The new chancel extended 28 feet from the original building.  When the construction was complete, James and Mary presented the church with a new organ, marble baptism font, bronze eagle lectern, brass pulpit, and a Carrara marble altar constructed over the wooden altar from the first church site.  These gifts, still in use today, were dedicated by Bishop Littlejohn on October 16, 1893.

The contract for building was awarded to E. Bailey and Son of Patchogue.  Construction began in June of 1884 and the cornerstone was laid on July 23, 1884 by the first Bishop of the newly formed Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, The Right Reverend A. N. Littlejohn.  The Corrector newspaper dated July 24, 1884 notes that among the items placed inside the cornerstone were four issues of local newspapers and periodicals, a Bible, The Prayer Book, coins, and a list of local and national political leaders.  The names of church members who volunteered and tradesmen employed in the construction of the church were also placed in the cornerstone.

The church, which cost around $6,000 to build, was covered in clapboard, painted dark red and built in the Gothic revival style of the day.  The building measured 51 by 33 feet, with a Church School room measuring 30 by 24 feet with wide doors opening into the sanctuary.  The rector’s study was on the second floor of the Church School room.  The chancel was two steps above the nave and its original size was 15 by 11 feet.  The structure was completed by a 100-foot-tall square steeple, raised in November 1884.  The church was topped with a slate gabled roof and the tower and gables were surmounted by metal or wooden crosses. The roof was open truss work of yellow pine.  An organ was placed on the north side of the sacristy and the wooden altar from the previous church building was placed on the east wall.  (The white aluminum siding on the church today was installed in 1968 after lightning and fire damaged the bell tower.  The stained-glass windows in the tower were stored with the hope that future generations of village residents and church members would restore the church to its former glory.)

In 1912, the Aldrich family helped fund the building of the parish hall designed by Arthur Wood, a Garden City architect and former resident of Sag Harbor.  This two-story hall was built “for all kinds of religious, philanthropic and educational meetings and other gatherings in the interest of the parish.”  During the Second World War, this building found one of its finest uses as the Sag Harbor Servicemen’s Center.  In more recent times, Katherine Whiteside Tucker, a long time Christ Church member and founder of the Eastville Historical Society, helped organize Maureen’s Haven.  The parish hall, for many years, housed and fed unhoused men transported to Sag Harbor by Maureen’s Haven.  The lower parish hall was the home of Goat on the Boat, a puppet theater, for many years.  Today the church’s parish hall is used by a variety of community organizations: recovery groups, acting classes, exercise groups, and a summer camp. 

In 1917 Mrs. Aldrich gave the Tiffany window in memory of her husband.  This window on the west wall of the church, depicts the boy Jesus conversing with elders in the Temple.  She also commissioned a second Tiffany window for the Baptistry (now used as a chapel).  This window has a cross with glass shaped to look like gemstones.  After the completion of the parish hall, Mrs. Aldrich had a rectory built and furnished.  The silver tea and coffee service and flatware, engraved with her initials and the word Rectory, are still used for meals after Easter and Christmas services.  

Christ Church property has been adorned and furnished with other memorial gifts.  In 1976, the Schulmerich Coronation Carillon was given by Fritz Bramwell and sons in memory of Lula B. Bramwell.  The piano of W. C. Handy, an African American composer and a leader in popularizing blues music, was given and placed in the Upper Parish Hall.  In 2023 Francis and Donald Ferris placed a bust of Christ in the church.  This posthumous sand casting, executed in bronze, is the creation of Marshall Maynard Fredericks, father of Francis Ferris. 

The number of members and worshipers have fluctuated throughout Christ Church’s history, but its mission to “Know Christ and Make Christ Known,” persisted.  Today membership includes year-round residents of Sag Harbor and people who live here seasonally.  Members are older and younger, African American, Caucasian, Hispanic and Native American.  They are heterosexual, LGBTQ and cisgender and gender non-conforming.  This congregation is as diverse as the saints in heaven.  The worship gatherings resource and empower service to God at work, home, school and in the community.