File:Irwin Brush Creek Salem United Church of Christ, Hempfield Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania - 20210227.jpg

English: Irwin Brush Creek Salem United Church of Christ, 113 Altar Lane, Hempfield Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, February 2021. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, this two-story, side-gabled structure was built from 1816 through 1820 and, save for an annex added in 1958 to the north side of the building (seen at right in this photo) retains the integrity of its original design almost perfectly. Its simple architecture, an iteration of the Federal style that draws heavy influence from the design of contemporaneous Anglican church buildings in Virginia, is characterized by a strict bilateral symmetry both of the five-bay main façade and the three-bay south-facing lateral elevation. These are both centered on identical entrances whose Classical characteristics consist of double doors crowned by fanlights and framed in turn by pairs of engaged Doric pilasters, elegant keystone-adorned round arches, and denticulated broken pediments. Said arches are echoed by those the crown the second-floor windows, which in turn present a contrast with the square-headed widows on the ground floor. The interior contains a Victorian Gothic organ in a walnut case dating back to 1870, as well as high-quality original woodwork that's rarely seen in churches of similar vintage in the region. The church was founded about 1773 and originally worshiped in a log church on the same site that was lost to fire; it took the name Salem, a Hebrew word translating to "peace", due to the fact that it was shared by two separate congregations of different denominations, one German Reformed and one Lutheran, the latter of which moved to their own building in 1836 and the former, which now after multiple denominational mergers over the years is affiliated with the United Church of Christ, still occupy the building.