This is the First Presbyterian Church of Belmar, stop #4 on the Belmar Treasure Trail. The congregation was founded on March 20, 1877. It’s interesting that before construction of Belmar’s diverse churches, many people in the community worshipped in the same place – and that was a former pavilion from the Centennial Expo in Philadelphia, more commonly known as the World’s Fair. In the summer of 1880, when Belmar was known as Ocean Beach, the pavilion was brought from Philly to Belmar. As a side note, several of our beautiful homes throughout town were originally structures from that same 1876 World’s Fair. These huge buildings were transferred by waterway to Belmar, where they were then “rolled” on giant telephone-pole-like logs to their destinations. Anyway, the pavilion relevant to the churches was set up at th ...