Easter is an occasion for baptisms, and it gives us the opportunity to view our historic font, the receptacle for water, that is only brought out when needed.
Traditionally, in Europe, fonts were usually stationary and carved in stone. Portable wooden fonts such as ours mostly appeared after the Reformation, particularly in the New World. A bowl or basin, usually of silver, was placed in the wooden receptacle and water was poured into it. Philadelphia’s Christ Church still has a 17th century wooden font that is believed to have been brought here in 1697 from All Hallows Church in London, where it was used for the infant William Penn’s baptism in 1644. (1)
The first mention found of St. Peter’s font appears in the minutes of a Vestry meeting held at the Rector’s home on October 11, 1787. (2) Rev. Dr. William White, who was Rector of both Christ Church and St. Peter’s, had recently returned from England where he was consecrated as Bishop of Pennsylvania on February 4 of that year. Two of the 11 vestrymen present were John Swanwick and Wooddrop Sims; Mr. Sims had a brother, Joseph, who was not on the Vestry. The minutes read:
“The Rector having mentioned to this Vestry the presents lately made to the church by Mr. John Swanwick [and] Messrs. Wooddrop and Joseph Sims, the Episcopal Chair, a Communion Table Cloth and a Baptismal Font, the chair by Mr. Swanwick and the cloth and font by Messeurs [sic] Sims, the same was accepted by the Vestry and their thanks voted to their [sic] gentlemen for
their attention to the church….”
Because Christ Church and St. Peter’s were affiliated at that time, it is not clear which of these gifts went to which church, but since Christ Church supposedly had the font that came from London, St. Peter’s probably got the new font, which we are still using. As for the Bishop’s Chair, St. Peter’s does have such a chair, decorated with a carved bishop’s miter, but Christ Church has a similar and somewhat more elaborate chair, also with a carved miter, which might have been the one given by Mr. Swanwick. It is unknown what became of the altar cloth.
The Sims brothers who donated the font, Wooddrop (1758-1793) and Joseph (1760-1851), together with their parents and many other family members, are interred at the east end of our churchyard, in “Joseph Sims’s Family Vault,” which refers to their father, Joseph Sims Sr. (1713-1779). Their mother was Anne Wooddrop Sims (1723-1802), which accounts for the unusual name of their son and several other family members. Wooddrop Sims died at age 35 of “decay” according to church records, but as 1793 was the height of a yellow fever outbreak, that may have been the cause. His brother Joseph attained the age of 90.
Looking at the font itself brings up another interesting topic – the history of mahogany. This is a tropical hardwood, Sweitenia mahagoni, native to the West Indies. It was unknown to Europeans until the 1600s, but its exceptional qualities soon made it a major export to both Europe and the North American colonies, and eventually it was cultivated throughout the tropics worldwide.
“The wood of mahogany ranges in color from a pale brown, pink, light red, or dark red to a reddish brown. Capable of being highly polished, the wood is easy to work and often contains remarkable figure. The tree attains a height of 150 feet and a trunk diameter of 10 to 15 feet. …West Indian mahogany is heavy, hard, close-grained, and has a rich reddish-brown color.” (3)
In the 18th century the main sources of mahogany were the Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Honduras, but the finest quality came from Jamaica. With lustrous, rich color that darkened with age, this beautiful and exotic product became a high-status luxury commodity. A boost to the trade came in 1721 with Parliament’s Naval Stores Act, which removed all duties on timber imported from the British colonies in America, making mahogany financially competitive with local woods. It was harvested as logs, planks, and boards and shipped north in quantities that were soon consumed by Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite and others: “Mahogany became the essential material that led to the golden age of British furniture making in the 18th century, often called the “Age of Mahogany.” (4)
The dark side of this is, it was enslaved African men who felled the trees, cut them into sections weighing tons, loaded them onto ox-carts and hauled them to the seaports. Demand for mahogany tables, chairs, dressers, desks, and more, furthered the Transatlantic Slave Trade and contributed to rapid deforestation in the region. This popularity extended from Western Europe into British North America. (5)
Our baptismal font leaves many questions unanswered, but it seems to fit the descriptions of 18th century Jamaica Mahogany and appears to have been carved (sumptuously!) from one or more logs. It consists of a casket-like base with curved sides, topped by a short, fluted pillar, which in turn is topped by an urn with a removable lid. The urn is encircled with three winged cherubs’ heads, and the lid is topped with a dome formed of acanthus leaves, a classical motif. Atop that is a gilded dove with wings outspread, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. With the lid in place, the font stands about five feet high.
This is speculation, but the base, pillar, and urn were probably made separately, perhaps by different craftsmen, and fitted together. The base and pillar are quite architectural and are probably a cabinetmaker’s work. The urn is of a slightly darker color, has naturalistic elements, and a woodcarver obviously had a hand in it; specifically, the gilded dove and the cherubs’ heads were probably made
separately and attached to the urn and lid. Where this font was made, and by whom, has not been definitely determined, but Philadelphia was rife with expert craftsmen in the 1780s, including Martin Jugiez (active 1762-1815), who made the gilded woodcarvings on St. Peter’s organ-case and pulpit. But several years ago, St. Peter’s historian Libby Brown was contacted by Dr. Philip D. Zimmerman, author and expert in early American furniture, who examined our font and attributed it to Daniel Trotter (1747-1800), a fourth-generation Philadelphia cabinetmaker who made sets of chairs for Stephen Girard in 1786 and 1790. (6)
Another intriguing question: What had St. Peter’s used for baptisms for the previous 26 years?
And here is another rabbit hole I fell into in researching this: Among many merchants in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1780s that dealt in the mahogany trade was the firm of Jennings & Woddrop, in business 1785-1799. In 1787 they advertised the sale of a shipment of Honduras mahogany. (7) One of the partners was John Woddrup, who had emigrated from Scotland in 1780. (8) Could
he have been related to the Wooddrops of Philadelphia, and connected them to some choice chunks of wood from Jamaica? One more thing: John Woddrup was buried in 1802 at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Charleston, the same place as Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746-1825), (9) the Constitution-
signer whose mother Eliza rests in St. Peter’s churchyard in Philadelphia. Let us leave it at that.
—Carolyn Klepser, March 2026
Footnotes:
1 Christchurchphila.pastperfectarchives.com
2 Christ Church Archives, philadelphiacongregations.org
3 Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts; MESDA, Chapel Hill N.C., 1975, pp. 70-71.
4 Laurelcrown.com/mahogany-furniture-history
5 “Slavery and Freedom in the White House Collection: The White House Collection and the Atlantic World,” whitehousehistory.org
6 Philip D. Zimmerman, American Federal Furniture and Decorative Arts from the Watson Collection; Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia, 2004.
7 Bradford L. Rauschenberg, “Timber Available in Charleston, 1660-1820,” Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts; op. cit.
8 AncestryLibrary.com
9 Findagrave.com