With its stained glass windows and dark wood interior, St. Gabriel's is an architectural monument as well as a place of worship.
The history of St. Gabriel’s is woven into the fabric of Titusville’s history. Constructed in 1888 on land donated by Mary Hopkins Titus. Its Carpenter Gothic style reflects a trend in nineteenth-century Episcopal architecture known as “Bishop Weed Gothic,” named for Edwin Gardner Weed, third Bishop of Florida (1846-1924). In 1892, the church bell, which is the largest in Brevard County, was installed. The interior walls and pews were fashioned from dark hardwood. The floorplan is a modified cruciform with a central aisle and two short side aisles. The altar stands in the apse of the church behind which is a stained glass window bearing the image of St. Gabriel. The church’s windows have been described as one of the finest collections of Victorian stained glass in the Indian River area. Yet it was the donation of the St. Gabriel window by Mrs. J. N. Pritchard of New York, mother of prominent local resident Captain James Pritchard, that prompted the congregation to change the church’s name from St. John’s to St. Gabriel’s.
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