St. Peter's Church

The vestry of Christ Church determined by the 1750s, as the congregation grew, that there was a need for a church in the southern section of town. They commissioned Robert Smith, who had completed the steeple on Christ Church just a few years earlier, to build “a Church or House for the Worship of Almighty God, “ on a plot of land at Third and Pine Streets. The first stone was laid in September 1758 and three years later in September 1761 the Rev. William Smith (Provost of the College of Philadelphia) presided over the opening.