St. Paul’s Episcopalian Church, 120 East J Street, with its eye-catching Gothic Revival Architecture started as a small square building in 1859. Col. Julian McAllister, commander of the Benicia Arsenal, drew up the plans for the church. The Right Reverend William Ingraham Kip, First Episcopal Bishop of California, consecrated St. Paul’s on Feb. 12, 1860. Changes continued over the next 26 years including the traditional cross design, redwood panels, stained glass windows and the 40 foot high, slender, redwood steeple. Norwegian ships’ carpenters who worked for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company may have sculpted the ceiling to look like an inverted ship’s hull. Medieval Norwegian stave church ceilings were similar in design. The rectory behind the church, 122 East J Street, is a saltbox house built in 1790, in Connecticut. Col. McAllister had it disassembled, shipped around Cape Horn and reassembled in Benicia in 1868. This mural depicts the Benicia townsfolk dressed in their finest, gathering for church service.