First Protestant Church Monument
Steilacoom, Pierce County, Washington
Marker Inscription
1853 - 1908 This monument commemorates the erection on this site of the first Protestant church building north of the Columbia River in 1853 by Rev. John F. DeVore D.D. and his co-workers and friends. Erected by the Washington State Historical Society Pug… transcription continues on the marker
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The Story
In 1853, the year Washington Territory was carved out of Oregon, the Methodist minister John F. DeVore and his co-workers raised the first Protestant church building north of the Columbia River here at Steilacoom. This monument, placed by the Washington State Historical Society, marks that frontier congregation's founding.
Why it matters
As settlers pressed into the Pacific Northwest, churches were among the first institutions to take root — and this site marks the arrival of organized Protestant worship in the future state of Washington.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1853, the Pacific Northwest was still very much a frontier. That year, Washington Territory was carved out of the larger Oregon Territory, drawing a new line on the map north of the Columbia River and giving the settlements scattered along Puget Sound a government of their own.
This was country in the earliest stages of American settlement. A generation of pioneers had followed the Oregon Trail west, and the more adventurous among them pushed north into the forests and inlets of the Sound. Towns like Steilacoom were among the first American communities to take shape in the region — small, rough-hewn places where lumber, shipping, and farming were just beginning to knit a settled society out of the wilderness.
Into that raw landscape came the institutions of the older states, and among the earliest to arrive was organized religion. A church building was one of the first signs that a frontier camp intended to become a permanent town.
People & events
The Reverend John F. DeVore was a Methodist minister who threw himself into that work of planting churches in the new territory. In 1853, DeVore and, as the monument puts it, his co-workers and friends, raised a church building here at Steilacoom — the first Protestant church erected north of the Columbia River.
Raising a frame church on the frontier was no small undertaking. Lumber had to be milled, funds gathered from a scattered and cash-poor population, and labor coaxed from settlers who had a hundred other demands on their time. That a congregation managed it in the very year the territory was organized speaks to the determination DeVore and his companions brought to the task.
The monument itself carries the dates 1853 to 1908 and was placed by the Washington State Historical Society, marking both the founding and, decades later, the community's decision to commemorate it. By the time the marker went up, the frontier congregation of DeVore's day had become part of the settled history of a growing state.
Its place in the American story
Across the American frontier, churches were often among the very first institutions to put down roots — sometimes ahead of courthouses, schools, or banks. They offered more than worship; they were gathering places, moral anchors, and signs that a wandering population meant to stay.
The raising of the first Protestant church north of the Columbia fits squarely into that larger national pattern of westward expansion, in which faith communities followed settlers into every new territory and helped turn frontier camps into civic communities. What happened at Steilacoom in 1853 was happening, in its own local key, all across the advancing edge of American settlement.
Because it marks a genuine "first" for the region that would become Washington State, this site holds a particular place in the story of how the Pacific Northwest was drawn into the American fold — one congregation, one church building, one small town at a time.
If you visit
Steilacoom sits on the shore of Puget Sound, and part of the reward of visiting is simply taking in that setting — the water, the light, and the old-town feel of one of the region's earliest American communities. This is a place that wears its history openly.
At the monument, take a moment with the inscription and the dates it carries. You are standing where a frontier congregation gathered in the same year their territory first appeared on the map, and where, half a century later, their descendants chose to mark the spot. That span from 1853 to the monument's placement is itself part of the story — a young settlement growing old enough to honor its own beginnings.
It pairs naturally with a walking tour of historic Steilacoom, whose early buildings and Sound-side streets make the frontier era feel close at hand. Give yourself time to wander, and let the monument set the scene for how young — and how hard-won — American settlement in this corner of the country really is.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Rev. John F. DeVore
Themes & tags
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