By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
Last month Episcopalian parishioners honored a priest who used to ferry from Sausalito to Belvedere to deliver sermons almost 100 years ago.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Christ Church in 1887.
A rower representing the Rev. Harrold St. George Buttrum staged a reenactment of Buttrum’s bay crossings while church members from Christ Episcopal Church in Sausalito and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Belvedere cheered him on from the USS Potomac, the former yacht of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was an Episcopalian.
Buttrum –– originally from England, and later the University of Manitoba –– was given the title of vicar for St. Stephen’s while rector at Christ Church and served for 28 years in Marin.
According to a St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church history pamphlet, “Rev. Buttrum would hold 7:00 a.m. Eucharist at Christ Church, take the ferry to St. Stephen’s for a 9:00 a.m. Sunday Service and 10:00 a.m. Sunday School before using the ferry to return to Sausalito for the 11:00 a.m. Sunday Service.”
St. Stephen’s was founded in 1878, and Christ Church was founded in 1882. Buttrum was born
at Suffolk, United Kingdom in 1875. After graduating from St. John’s College around 1901 he was named Rector of St. Matthew’s Anglican Church (1901-1905). He and his wife Bertha had three children. His next assignment brough him out West for his next pastoral appointmen, in British Columbia.
In 1915, the family resettled to the Bay Area.
According to Historical Society founder Jack Tracy, Christ Church, at Santa Rosa and San Carlos Avenues, is the oldest surviving church structure in Sausalito.
After serving as rector in Sausalito and Belvedere, Buttrum took a brief retirement before answering the call to return as the Rector Emeritus of Trinity Episcopal Church in Sonoma (1945-1956). He also attained a Doctorate of Divinity, taught at Church Divinity School at Berkeley, and was Dean of Convocation (Ministerial Association) in San Francisco for 20 years.
Buttrum died of pneumonia at a rest home in Sonoma in 1971 and was buried at Chapel of the Chimes in Santa Rosa. But his memory lives on through the efforts of parishioners on either side of Richardson’s Bay.