PORT TOWNSEND — First Presbyterian Church of Port Townsend will celebrate its 150th anniversary this weekend.
The sesquicentennial celebrations are in the church, located at 1111 Franklin St., in uptown Port Townsend.
The church was originally chartered in March 1873 by a group of seven women who raised $250 in gold coins to purchase an uptown lot and built the first stone church north of the Columbia River.
The stone from that building was used 17 years later for the foundation of a new, larger building, which is still in use today.
The new building included a tracker organ built in Oakland, Calif., which is the oldest such organ still in its original location in Washington state.
This weekend’s events include:
An organ concert by Tom Stahl featuring the works of Bach, Mason, Cesar Frank and Boellmann at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Sunday’s worship service will include a sermon by the Rev. Tim Dolan, the church’s pastor during the 1990s, and the presentation of a 150th anniversary quilt from the Prayers & Squares quilting team.
The service will be followed by an English Tea; reservations can be made at welcome@fpcpt.org.
Debbie Reid will present “On the Home Front … The War Years in Port Townsend” at 10:45 a.m. Sunday.
The presentation discusses Port Townsend’s role in the 1859 Pig War between the U.S. and U.K., the Triangle of Fire through two World Wars and today’s Naval Magazine Indian Island.
For more information, call the church at 360-385-2525 or visit www.cpcpt.org.
