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Key West - The Religion

As immigration grew in the Keys, so did the different types of religion. The very first religious organization was St. Paul's Episcopal Church. St. Paul's first service was on Christmas day, 1832, in the County Court House. In 1839 their first physical church was built. It was build out of coral rock, but was knocked down by a hurricane in 1846. They rebuilt it using better material in 1847 but in 1886 a fire burnt it down. They rebuilt a third church, but in 1909 that one faced the same fate as the first. And was knocked down buy a hurricane. The current structure begun in 1912. As early as 1837 the first Methodist Church was started by religious Bahamians, the church was called the Old Stone Church. In 1868 introduction of music in church, led into a new group called Uptown Church.

In the early 1940's priests from the Catholic diocese of Savannah, GA would come to Key West a few times a year to give the Holy sacraments. The first mass was held in City Hall, on October 10th, 1846. In 1852 the first Catholic Church, St. Mary's Star-Of-The-Sea was built. Early Jewish settlers congregation, Bnai Zion is one of the oldest in South Florida. The congregation dates back as far as 1887. In 1907 they made a building they had bought into a synagogue. It remained their place of worship until 1969, when the present structure was finished on United St. In 1897 the first Science and Health service was held in the Masonic Temple, now where the Federal Building sits. A group of black citizens gathered under a lime tree in 1846, on the 200 block of Hutcherson Lane and organized the Cornish Chapel, A.M.E. Zion Church. In 1865 under the leadership of Andrew Cornish the current Structure was built, it is named First African American Methodist Episcopal Church.

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