Women were critical to the organization of St. Luke’s in 1823 and every stage of its growth thereafter

In truth, women were critical to the organization of St. Luke’s in 1823 and every stage of its growth thereafter. Ladies working societies had existed at St. Luke’s in its earliest years, and they raised funds for various projects and improvements through the antebellum period. The St. Cecilia Society was composed of those who sought to improve the church’s musical program. Another society, a chapter of the Daughters of the King, was organized at St. Luke’s in November 1892. It was the first chapter in North Carolina, and named itself the Bishop Lyman Chapter, in honor of the long-serving bishop, Theodore Benedict Lyman, who would die a year later, on 11 December 1893… . A chapter house became the first successful project undertaken by the Bishop Lyman Chapter. At a meeting on 4 September 1893 the vestry unanimously approved a motion “that the Daughters of the King be allowed to build a large room to the side & rear of the Church for their meetings & other church purposes.” The building remained in planning for a year, until September 1894 when the vestry agreed to borrow any necessary amount above $200 to be raised by the chapter. The small rectangular freestanding building, now serving as the chapel, was completed in 1895. Of plain, workmanlike brick masonry, it was fitted with lancet-arch windows and a doorway in its southwest side that now opens into the hallway of the library.

(Source: Davyd Foard Hood, From Generation to Generation: A History of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Salisbury, North Carolina, 2006, pp. 143-44)