Image from NHS Collection (Location box 7, Folder 27).
One of the last congregati0ns to be introduced to colonial Newport was the Moravian or the United Brethren Church in 1758. Their meeting house on the corner of Church and High Streets was constructed in 1767 by Rev. Louis Rusmeyer and seated 241 parishioners, many of German descent. The congregation died out by 1850 and the building was later used as Mary Dennis’s intermediate school for girls.
The Moravian Church evolved out of the Protestant Reformation in Bohemia (Czech Republic) and was firmly established in Bethlehem and Lancaster, Pennsylvania by the mid 1700s. The site was purchased by Trinity Church which erected the new Kay Chapel in 1869 and moved the Moravian graves to the Common Burying Ground. Currently the building is used as a wedding chapel for The Hotel Viking.