The first settlers in Goshen Township arrived circa 1805, and Mechanicsburg was platted on 6 August 1814. Organized religion was rare in the earliest years; the first churches were established by circuit-riding preachers from the Methodist Episcopal Church, who founded small religious classes that met in settlers' log cabins. Mechanicsburg's first church was a Methodist congregation organized in 1814, and by the 1880s the village boasted four additional churches: Baptist, black Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal, and Methodist Protestant. Champaign County's first Protestant Episcopal church was the Church of the Epiphany on the eastern side of the county seat of Urbana; it was created in 1847, nearly fifty years before a parish was formed in Mechanicsburg. Under the leadership of a five-man executive committee, the Church of Our Saviour was organized in 1892; the parish saw its first church building completed in the following year, although 1894 arrived before the building was dedicated. The first priest was F.V. Baer, and by the end of the 1890s, the members had bought an additional lot and were preparing to build a new rectory upon it. Although the early members remained loyal to their church, it was frequently weakened by deaths and movement away from the community in its early years. Nevertheless, the parish remained active, and its presence was welcomed by Mechanicsburg's other churches; within its first quarter-century of existence, the members formed an active Sunday school and founded multiple organizations for the female members.
Architecture
Constructed in 1893, dedicated in 1894, and rededicated in 1895, the Church of Our Saviour is a Gothic Revival structure. In its early years, its pipe organ, brass altar, and windows were deemed its most distinctive elements, all of which prompted a local author to declare that "both the exterior and interior are very attractive" in 1907. Built of brick on a stone foundation and featuring elements of wood and stone, the single-story church is covered with a composite roof rising to a central gable. The windows that attracted the attention of authors in the early twentieth century are stained glass; most are ogive windows, but the center of the facade features a rose window. A square brick tower with a wooden belfry sits at one corner of the building; additional stained glass windows are placed in the tower, and ornamental wooden carvings adorn the belfry. Architecturally, it is not unique; three of Mechanicsburg's five historic church buildings were constructed in the 1890s, and four of the five are brick buildings with stained-glass ogive windows.
