Sound Familiar?

I ran across an interesting news story today. For fun, I'm going to quote some of it, but will leave out any dates and a few proper names, to see if you can guess when these events occurred.

I'll wait for awhile, and then add the link to the article, so you can see how close your date matches the facts:

...All went well until the early ****s when a rift began to appear within the congregation over the interpretation of theological teachings and doctrine.

Some wanted to relax what they saw as the old 'high church' practices and others wanted to maintain the status quo.

In **** the issue came to a head and in an attempt to settle the matter the Wardens, led by Ezekiel Taylor, locked the church to both groups.

The dissenting group then met at the Free Meeting House and the others chose Dunlap's Hall on Main Street.

At about the same time as dissent was growing within the congregation of Saint George's Episcopal Church in Moncton, a similar movement was underway in the United States under the leadership of Bishop *******. He and his followers formed a new church called the ******** ********* ******, and the Moncton group wrote to Bishop ******* asking that a clergyman be sent to Moncton to lead them. By January **** Saint Paul's ******** ********* Church was established in Moncton.

Within a few weeks plans were made for a building and two lots were bought from James Robertson and J. & C. Harris on the northeast corner of Victoria and Botsford street.

The cornerstone was laid Oct. 11, **** and the church was dedicated three days later. A Sunday school building and rectory were built later on the site.

A large number of parishioners left the congregation of Saint George's Episcopal Church to join the new church...

...At first the new church flourished and continued to do so until the early ****s, despite it being far removed from other similar congregations.

However, by June **** the congregation had dwindled to a few persons as families moved, children left home for other locations and senior members died.

Services were discontinued and the church closed.

BTW, St. George's, mentioned in the article, is erroneously identified as St. George's "Episcopal" Church...it is located in New Brunswick, so it is obviously St. George's "Anglican" Church.

The breakaway church eventually closed its doors, but the original church, St. George's, is still alive and well:



Ok, what are the dates for the split at St. George's Anglican Church?

J.

UPDATE: The article can be found here. The split happened in 1876, and the new congregation was indeed part of the Reformed Episcopal Church. The Bishop from the United States that they contacted was George David Cummins, founder of the REC.

What I found interesting about the article was that by changing a few dates and a few names, this could easily be a current article about some ACNA congregation. The pattern is the same.

However, it was surprising that the Warden (not the Rector or the Bishop) locked both groups out of the church! Obviously that was an era in which Wardens had more authority than they do in this day and age.