Hutton, Addison (1834-1916)

Birthplace:

Pennsylvania, USA

Residences:

  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Trades:

  • Architect

Building Types:

Styles & Forms:

Gothic Revival

Addison Hutton (1834-1916), an important Philadelphia architect born a Quaker in Pennsylvania, began his career as assistant to architect Samuel Sloan from 1857 to 1861, supervising Sloan’s works in the South. The first of these were Sloan’s First Presbyterian Church (1859-1861) and First Baptist Church (1859-1870), in Wilmington, North Carolina. In antebellum Wilmington, where several major buildings were planned by distant urban architects, it was not unusual for the client or the architect to employ a supervising architect to guide the builders. Hutton arrived in Wilmington in 1859 as construction contracts were being let for the massive First Baptist Church. Although the Presbyterian project was completed in time for use in 1861, the Baptist project stopped during the Civil War and was not completed until 1870. Meanwhile, Hutton left Wilmington in 1860 to supervise Sloan’s famed “Longwood” near Natchez, Mississippi, which because of the war was never completed. Hutton returned to Philadelphia and had a long career there as a partner of Samuel Sloan and on his own.

  • Janet K. Seapker Files, Private Collection, Wilmington, North Carolina.
  • Philadelphia Architects and Buildings, http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org.
  • Wilmington Daily Herald, Dec. 19, 1859.
  • Tony P. Wrenn, “Henry Bacon,” in William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 1 (1979).
  • Elizabeth Biddle Yarnall, Addison Hutton, Quaker Architect, 1834-1916 (1974).
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  • First Baptist Church

    Contributors:
    Addison Hutton, supervising architect; Samuel Sloan, architect
    Dates:

    1859-1870

    Location:
    Wilmington, New Hanover County
    Street Address:

    421 Market St. (at Fifth Ave.), Wilmington, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Religious

    Images Published In:

    Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina (1996).
    Tony P. Wrenn, Wilmington, North Carolina: An Architectural and Historical Portrait (1984).

    Note:

    The congregation purchased the lot for the new church in 1858 and sent the minister and a deacon to Richmond, Baltimore, Washington, and other cities to see churches and consult architects. On April 18, 1859, the building committee recommended Sloan as architect to design a church in “Early English Gothic” with two towers, one high and one low. The minister of First Baptist Church recorded stages of its construction, such as: April 16, 1861, “Fort Sumter bombarded all night! . . . the windows on towers of our church raised to-day. So glad.” July 30, 1861, “The doors and windows are being closed and the lumber piled” (quoted in Wrenn, Wilmington, 211-212). In 1996, the tall spire of First Baptist Church was toppled by Hurricane Fran, but it was rebuilt in 1998.


  • First Presbyterian Church

    Contributors:
    Addison Hutton, supervising architect; Samuel Sloan, architect; James Walker, builder; George Wilson, supervising mason
    Dates:

    1859-1861

    Location:
    Wilmington, New Hanover County
    Street Address:

    121 S. 3rd St., Wilmington, NC

    Status:

    No longer standing

    Type:

    Religious

    Images Published In:

    Susan Taylor Block, Cape Fear Lost (1999).
    Emma Woodward MacMillan, A Goodly Heritage (1961).
    Beverly Tetterton, Wilmington: Lost But Not Forgotten (2005).

    Note:

    Sloan’s First Presbyterian Church was built on a newly acquired site to replace a previous church (1821) that burned in 1859. The 1859-1861 building, in elaborate Gothic Revival style, burned in 1925 and was in turn replaced by the present First Presbyterian Church (1926-1928) designed by Hobart Upjohn.


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