PURSELL & FRY (fl. 1885-87), an architectural firm from Philadelphia, Penn. who are credited with a convincing Gothic Revival design for Burns Presbyterian Church, Lasalle Line at Kimball Road, MOORE TOWNSHIP, ONT., built in 1887 and still standing in 2014. Isaac Newton Pursell (1853-1910) was born in Trenton, N.J. on 21 June 1853 and trained under the leading American architect Samuel Sloan. He opened his own office in Philadelphia in 1878 and in 1885 he formed a partnership there with Joseph W.B. Fry (1852-1892). Pursell was a prolific ecclesiastical designer, and his name can be linked with over thirty church buildings in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Indiana, and Tennessee and elsewhere. Many of his designs for churches were published in the Annual Reports of the Presbyterian Board of Church Erection Fund.
His plans for Burns Presbyterian Church in Ontario are credited to Pursell & Fry, and bear a distinct similarity to “Design No. 13”, a perspective drawing and plan signed by Pursell and published in the Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of the Church Erection Fund of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, [New York], May 1881, pages 28-29, illus. & descrip. This Lambton County landmark, located south of Sarnia, appears to be his only Canadian commission. Pursell died Wenonah, N.J. on 19 August 1910 (obit. A.I.A. Quarterly Bulletin [Washington], xi, Oct. 1910, 197; biog. and list of works in H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 493; Sandra Tatman, Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects, 1985, 636-38, biog. and list of works).
PURSELL & FRY
MOORE TOWNSHIP, LAMBTON COUNTY, ONTARIO, Burns Presbyterian Church, Lasalle Line at Kimball Road, 1887 (History of Burns United Church, 1963, unpag.; inf. Ian Mason, Sarnia).
ISAAC PURSELL
WEST PITTSTON, PENN., First Presbyterian Church, 1890 (American Architect & Building News [ Boston], xxx, Nov. 1890, 90 and plate illus.)
MILLVILLE, N.J., Presbyterian Church, 1890 (American Architect & Building News [ Boston], xxx, 123 and plate illus.)
GERMANTOWN, PENN., Calvary Reformed Episcopal Church, 1892 (American Architect & Building News [ Boston], xxxviii, Nov. 1892, 137, illus.)