Old St. Peter's Church was built in 1873 at the behest of the Right Reverend Benjamin Wister Morris, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Oregon and of Washington Territory. The bell tower circa 1874 was a cut-off tree well over 300 yrs old, encouraging statements like "The Oldest Bell Tower in North America!"
Through an oddity of law Bishop Morris discovered that he, and not the diocese, owned the church building, and in 1907 he conveyed the property to the new Missionary Diocese of Washington.
Between 1873 and 1907, St. Peter's followed the canon law of the local Episcopal Church diocese despite the fact that a majority of the congregation's governing board during those years was often not Episcopalian. On most occasions worship services were conducted by laymen or by visiting clergy of diverse denominational callings whose communions were not always given to mutual forbearance and Christian charity. The first organist, for example, was Jewish, even when an Episcopal minister was in residence. St. Peter's continued a form of religious toleration which was other than exhausted bigotry.
Following the First World War St. Peter's became, in fact, a community or congregational church by a process so unmarked by precise circumstance that the drift from an Episcopal Parish to a Community Church disturbed no one's sense of peace and tranquility.
When in the 1950's the building was restored, St. Peter's again presumed to be an Episcopal church and neither the Diocese of Olympia, the Protestant Episcopal Church in Western Washington, nor the congregation felt the need to place the church under the rules of the Diocesan Convention or the Office of the Bishop. It remained a self-supporting community church and followed Canons of the Episcopal Church as a matter of self-imposed discipline. Not until 1977 was the status of St. Peter's clarified: At that time the Diocese ceded to the congregation whatever legal interest it might have derived from Bishop Morris and offered the congregation its fond affection as a Christian enterprise independently governed.
Old Saint Peter's Church shares fraternal ties of concern and affection for the Anglican Communion. Its clergy has always been volunteer and the church does not receive denominational support. Although the building is a historical landmark, there are no government funds for upkeep. St. Peter's is supported and maintained by its congregation.