A Look Back

Jerry Person

Our story this week begins over 250 years ago in a small iron foundry

in Italy where workmen poured molten metal into wooden molds.

When the metal in the molds cooled down it was pounded into a

100-pound masterpiece of Christ’s Last Supper.

Over the years the handwrought iron plaque found its way to a church

in Frankfurt-on-the-Main in Germany where it proudly hung on its wall.

Meanwhile, a small band of 14 people met in the old Ocean View

schoolhouse at Edinger Avenue and Beach Boulevard on Dec. 29, 1895 to

form their own church. The First Church of Christ continued to meet for

the next 10 years at several locations until Jan. 1, 1905 when the group

found a permanent home inside a bicycle shop at 6th Street and Walnut

Avenue.

Layfett C. Haulman became its first minister and his daughter became

the church’s first organist. As the months went by, the little

congregation began to grow and the bicycle shop location became too

crowded, so in 1906 they moved to larger quarters in an upstairs room at

201 Main St.

Haulman continued to minister to his flock until 1907 when J.R. Jolly

took over and the church was relocated across Main Street in a bank

building.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the iron masterpiece was darkening

with age and of being illuminated by 100 years of candles.

In Huntington Beach, the congregation purchased a corner lot at 8th

Street and Orange Avenue on May 20, 1908. The congregation built its new

church and Tyron L. Young became its minister. Young served from March 8,

1909 until 1914, a series of ministers would later proudly serve the

congregation.

When Otto D. Lee became its pastor on Sept. 8, 1914, the little plaque

in far-off Germany was seeing the opening days of World War I.

When the war ended, the iron masterpiece was still intact. E.J. Harlow

became minister on Aug. 24, 1919 after having taken over for three other

pastors since Lee had headed the church. On Sept. of 1922, James G. Hurst

would begin his 31 years of ministry.

During this time the plaque in Germany began to see its darkest days

as Hitler began his iron rule of terror on Germany’s churches.

During World War II, the metal masterpiece saw its home church

destroyed by bombing.

After the war ended, workmen unearthed the plaque in the ruins of the

bombed-out church and from there it was sent to Berlin.

It was there that Garden Grove importer B.A. Fisher acquired it and

brought it over to America.

Two members of Hurst’s congregation, Conrad and Pearl Worthy, acquired

the plaque from Fisher and they donated it to their church in 1956. But

first it had to be cleaned and refinished before it could grace the

inside of the church.

Thomas Graham of Santa Ana spent weeks cleaning and buffing the iron

surface and little by little our timeworn plaque began to show its

original beauty.

A bronze coating was added and our masterpiece took on a new third

dimensional look.

Today our 250-year-old masterpiece sits in the First Christian Church

(the church’s new name) on Main Street above the welcome desk in the

Narthex, said Arline Howard of Huntington Beach.

The iron plaque of the Last Supper is still giving a new generation

the thrill of seeing a genuine work of art by artisans of so long ago.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.