HOW ST. MATTHEW'S BEGAN

St. Matthew’s Church figures in the beginnings of Fitzgerald, the "Colony City." The vision of the Reverend J.W. Turner was matched by that of the Right Reverend C.K. Nelson, Bishop of Georgia. Reverend Turner, of Hawkinsville, learned of the pending influx of many civil war veterans and their families to found a new town and new lives, and in August 1895, wrote to the bishop.

With Bishop Nelson’s reply and instructions to acquire a church lot, the Reverend Turner arrived, and on Sunday, September 15th, preached twice at an old school building in the community of Swan in the area later to be in Fitzgerald.

The next day he applied to the founder of the colony, P.H. Fitzgerald, for a lot on which to build an Episcopal church. He held regular services in the town from February 2, 1896, and the first Communion in Fitzgerald was celebrated on Easter Day the same year. St. Matthew’s was the first to build of thirteen denominations established here by the end of 1896.

A donation by Mr. John Shelton Williams, president of the Georgia and Alabama Railroad, greatly encouraged Reverend Turner, and the South Sheridan Street lot was purchased for $20.00. Building the first church began in July 1896. The first worship service in the new church building was on Sunday, October 4, 1896, and the Reverend Turner celebrated the first Holy Communion in the new church on October 18, 1896.

The paper reported, "The first and best finished of all that year was St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, located on South Sheridan Street, across from the Third Ward School. In 1904 this building was moved to the corner of Main and Central for which they paid $320. It stood until 1908 when $3,200 was offered for the lot and the church was moved again to the back of the lot on Pine Street where the present handsome structure was erected…"

First used for church school, this first St. Matthew’s church building was later sold and moved across Johnston Street, where it is in use today as a private home.

An early article notes, "It is not possible to express in words the self-sacrificing and indefatigable efforts and labors of the Reverend J.W. Turner. Although he did not live to see the handsome edifice in which the present congregation worships, it is the consummation of an inception, the praise of which belongs to him..."

The Reverend Turner died on March 25,1908. It is reported that Father Turner’s deathbed prayer was "God raise up a shepherd for my little flock." And so God has over the years, with a long line of shepherds under the Bishop of Georgia for this congregation, which has continued to play an important part in the life of this community.

The first service was held in the present church building on Pine Street by Bishop Henry Foch Reese on March 27,1911.

The history of St. Matthew’s is closely tied to that of Fitzgerald, but our heritage goes much deeper. St. Matthew’s is an integral part of the Episcopal Church under the Bishop of Georgia. As part of the Anglican Communion, its heritage stretches back to the very dawn of Christianity with the formation of the Church in Britain in the late First Century which has continued in an unbroken line since those early days; a part of the history of the western world since the time of Christ.

The Episcopal Church, then the Anglican Church, founded the first congregation in the Colony of Georgia. Father Henry Herbert accompanied General Oglethorpe as his Chaplain, and became the first Rector of historic Christ Church in Savannah in February 1733. Soon after, that congregation welcomed John Wesley as its Rector.