For 475 Years, The Book of Common Prayer Has Set the Standard for Anglican Worship
The Book of Common Prayer brought Christianity and the values of Western Civilization to the New World. The occasion of the first Prayer Book service on American soil is commemorated by a 57-foot high sandstone cross that towers over Drake’s Bay near San Francisco, California. In 1579, Sir Francis Drake’s ship the Golden Hind made landfall here during his voyage as a privateer commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I.
In 1577, Drake set out from England in pursuit of Spanish treasure. He rounded Cape Horn on the treacherous seas later named Drake Passage, emerged onto the Pacific, sailed up the coast of South America, and continued north to Vancouver, seeking a northwestern passage. The bitter-cold weather drove him back south, where he hauled the Golden Hind to caulk its leaky timbers.
On June 24, 1579, a few days after Drake’s landfall, the first Christian service on the soil pf the New World was conducted by ship’s chaplain Rev. Francis Fletcher, a Church of England priest, near the place that is now San Francisco. This was at the midpoint in Drake’s voyage, the first circumnavigation by an Englishman.
In the early 1600s, a continent away on the East Coast, English settlers brought their Book of Common Prayer, the official liturgy of England then as today, to Jamestown and Plymouth.
According to a 2019 account in San Francisco’s Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon,
"The Midwinter Exposition, mentioned in the cross’ inscription, was to be San Francisco’s coming-out party as an up-and-coming city with its mild winters on the West Coast. Construction for California’s first world’s fair exposition would also create jobs during the economic downturn at the time. The cross was unveiled as part of the Midwinter Exposition running from January to July, 1894. “
The front and back inscriptions on the 57-foot-tall sandstone cross reads: “Presented to Golden Gate Park at the opening of the Midwinter Fair, January 1, A.D. 1894, as a memorial of the service held on the shore of Drake’s Bay about Saint John the Baptist’s Day, June 24, Anno Domini 1579, by Francis Fletcher, priest of the Church of England, chaplain of Sir Francis Drake, chronicler of the service. Gift of George W. Childs, Esquire, of Philadelphia. First Christian service in the English tongue on our coast. First use of the Book of Common Prayer in our country. One of the first recorded missionary prayers on our continent. Soli Deo sit semper Gloria (God alone be the glory forever).”
