The most prominent features of the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church of Thibodaux are its two stained-glass windows.
The stained-glass windows in the present-day church were part of the second church building, built in 1906 and dedicated in January 1907. They were donated by James McBride, who is the grandfather of Betty Wurzlow, a member of our church, in memory of his mother, Olive McBride (window pictured at left) and his sisters, Eudora and Anna (window pictured at right).
There were two other stained-glass windows in the second church but they were destroyed by a hurricane in 1926. One was donated by the members of the congregation in the memory of the Rev. Nelson P. Chamberlain, who was pastor of the church from 1850-55 and 1859-66 and who died Oct. 17, 1869. The other was donated by the children of Mary King Fulford in her honor. Mrs. King, the childhood sweetheart of Ulysses S. Grant, was Thibodaux's first woman post master. Her former beau was president of the United States when her husband John died in 1870. Grant appointed her post master on Dec. 16, 1870. She resigned the following April. Mrs. King, who kept the Sunday School active through the turbulent times of the Civil War and Reconstruction, died Dec. 17, 1903 and is buried in St. John's Cemetery.
Mrs. Olive Ann McBride was born Aug. 15, 1806, in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 1839, she and her husband Peter and their two children moved to Cuba. They stayed there a few months and then moved to Louisiana, living in New Orleans and Donaldsonville before settling in Thibodaux in 1840. Her husband decided to move the family to California in 1850 after gold had been found there. But he got sick, died and was buried at sea and his wife and their seven children remained in Thibodaux. She joined the Presbyterian Church on Feb. 8, 1851. Her oldest son, Robert R. McBride, went on to become a trustee of Thibodaux, postmaster and parish assessor. Her son James owned Belle Grove plantation. When she died on March 10, 1888, the Thibodaux Sentinel lamented her death: "Her entire life has been a living exemplification of her implicit faith in the religion she so openly confessed."
Eudora McBride Grisamore, was born in Thibodaux in 1844. She joined the church on Dec. 17, 1866. She was the wife of Silas Grisamore, a member of St. John's Episcopal Church who was a businessman, newspaper editor and active in politics, having served as mayor of Thibodaux and as a member of the Lafourche Parish Police Jury and School Board (often at the same time). She died on Dec. 26, 1904.