Manhattan’s Trinity Church is one of the oldest Episcopal parishes in North America, but its church is a relative newcomer, built during the Gothic revival of the mid-19th century. No wonder most of the guesses placed it far away and in an earlier time!
1900 view of Trinity
Trinity’s history is deeply entwined with New York’s and the nation’s. Columbia University started in its building, George Washington (and many other Founding Fathers) was a parishioner when New York was the national capital, and it has continued to be important in New York through its influential parishioners and its very extensive ownership of land and buildings, which bring it an annual income of over $150 million, one of the world’s richest parishes.
The parish was created only 30 years after New Amsterdam was seized from Holland and became New York. It stands opposite the head of Wall Street, and has been closely connected with it—and just a few years ago, Occupy Wall Street took place almost in its front yard.
The Queen, with Mayor Abe Beame, the day she came to collect the rent arrears
Unknown to most New Yorkers, it still acknowledges itself as a sub-tenant of the British crown. As was common at the time it began, the church received a land grant, with revenue from the land expected to pay for building and maintaining the church. In this case, the rent to be paid to the Grantor, King William III, was 60 bushels of wheat a year, later reduced to 1 peppercorn. Queen Anne later extended the holdings. When Queen Elizabeth visited the church in 1976, she was presented with 279 peppercorns as back rent. Today, the church owns 14 acres of lower Manhattan, with annual revenues over $150 million, making it one of the richest parishes in the world!
Captain Kidd in respectable days…but perhaps well suited for construction in New York
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The first church was a fairly simple building, with a gambrel roof and small porch, and an interesting historical note: to raise the stones for the construction, the parish borrowed block and tackle from a well-known local figure: the notorious Captain William Kidd, then known as a successful privateer, but later tried and hanged as a pirate. The old building’s other historical note: In 1754, under a Royal charter as Kings College, the first eight students of what would become Columbia University started their instruction in the vestry.
The original building came to a bad end in the Great Fire of 1776, which may or may not have had a connection to continued British occupation of the city. It was not rebuilt until after the Revolution, and when George Washington was inaugurated as President a few blocks away, he attended Trinity’s 1746 satellite chapel, St. Paul’s (above), which is the oldest public building in use in New York City, until the second Trinity Church was completed in 1790. Severe snows in 1838-39 weakened and doomed Second Trinity.
The present church (above) was started in 1839, designed by Richard Upjohn, and is a classic of Gothic Revival. Actually, the demise of the second church gave rise to two Gothic Revival classics; while Trinity was under construction, the northern part of the parish was split off to build its own church. Grace Church (below), by James Renwick, was built “way uptown” at Broadway and 10th Street. Both churches were completed in 1846.
The piano performance seen in the first clue picture was nothing out of the ordinary for Trinity, which has a tradition of hosting music, including live performances for the Wall Street community of both classical and contemporary music, and also has several choirs, including the Trinity Choir that has a Sunday morning slot on PBS’s New York classical radio station.
Trinity also provides permanent homes to a number of past New Yorkers in its three graveyards. The main one, surrounding the church, has Alexander Hamilton, Robert Fulton, Albert Gallatin and more; its uptown cemetery, located on John James Audubon’s former estate, includes Audubon, John Jacob Astor and Clement Clarke Moore, author of “The Night Before Christmas,” among its residents. St. Paul’s Chapel graveyard, with legible stones dating to 1704, has fewer famous names, but is a virtual museum of tombstone styles over the centuries.
Imaginary birds-eye view of Trinity in 1850s; had to be imaginary because it was the tallest building in New York until 1913. Below, an 1872 birds-eye view of the city from the steeple.
