Historic Trinity

Overview

Trinity Church on the Green has been an important part of the history of New Haven, Connecticut, and America for over 300 years. There has been an official Episcopal presence in New Haven ever since Anglican missionary priests first ministered to the region beginning in 1705. In 1723 a parish in New Haven was organized by Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson.Under Dr. Johnson’s guidance, the Colonial wooden First Church was built in 1752-3, just before the beginning of the French and Indian War in the American Colonies.

Trinity’s Gothic-Style Church, the first of its kind in North America, sits on the public Green in New Haven. The Gothic “Trap Rock” Second Church was built in the midst of the War of 1812 in 1814-1816. Since then there have been many enhancements to the historic church, which stands at the corner of the town’s famous Green in the center of the town, a cornerstone of New Haven’s vibrant religious, artistic, and community life.

Trinity and New Haven have historical associations with not only the Church of England, but clergy from the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church of Ireland, Puritan refugees from Holland, and with French Huguenots. With the installation of Dr. Luk De Volder in 2011, Trinity Church and the New Haven community have reconnected with the history and languages of its ancestors.


Timeline: Colonial Foundations to Present

Nova Belgica et Anglia Nova, from Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1635, Amsterdam.

Nova Belgica et Anglia Nova, from Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1635, Amsterdam.

Click to view the Timeline

Note:  In the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the “Rector” is the priest elected to head a self-supporting parish. A priest who is appointed by the bishop to head a parish in the absence of a rector is termed a “priest-in-charge”, as is a priest leading a mission to a congregation that is not self-supporting.  All ministers before 1777 were SPG missionary ministers, and are thus “priests in charge”; after this date they are rectors.


 Biographies

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Notable Trinity people include: the famous Rev. Harry Croswell, a man seminal to the expansion of the Episcopal Church in New Haven, and to both freedom of the press and freedom of religion in America; Mrs. Lucy Boardman, the greatest woman philanthropist in the 19th century; and the President Rev. Samuel Johnson, founder of 25 churches in Connecticut, and Columbia University.  For those interested in press, graphic design, fonts, clocks, and other early American inventions and crafts, Issac Doolittle, Amos Doolittle, and Abel Bell were early contributors in all these areas.

Read more about these and other famous Trinity parishioners here.


Architecture

Look into the architecture of the amazing FIRST GOTHIC STYLE CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA that launched a movement, as well as other historic buildings associated with Trinity church. View our helpful Walk-throughs, and learn about our organ, Tiffany Windows, and the seminal Lee Lawrie statues.

Learn more here.


 Stained Glass Windows

View a presentation of Trinity’s beautiful stained glass windows, given in 2015-2016 as part of the Sunday Forum Bicentennial series on Trinity’s history.

Choir History

From the founding of Trinity in 1723, music has been an important part of its services of worship. By 1776, Trinity was taking the lead in establishing singing as a regular part of all Episcopal services throughout Connecticut.

Read more.


Articles

Articles about Trinity Church, its people, places, ideas, and history, including links to the rich set of papers, printed sermons, and other documents that illuminate the rich history of one of the most culturally significant Episcopal churches in America.

Project Canterbury has collected and digitized many published many public domain texts, and has a section for Trinity Church New Haven.  Many of the sermons and other documents are referenced in the Timeline above.

Some of the below articles are original contributions by Trinity Church History Mission’s  group members, while others are links to various journal articles published over the years relating to Trinity Church.

Some of the files are in .pdf format and may take some time to load.

1. The First Years: from Missions to Revolution, a description of the missionary years, the building of the First Church, and Trinity during the Revolutionary War.

2. The Last Two Slaves sold in New Haven. They were Lois Tritten age 40 and her daughter Lucy Tritten age 16, and were sold to Anthony P. Sanford, a shareholder of Trinity, who quickly freed them.

3. The Reverend Harry Croswell, and Black Episcopalians in New Haven, 1820-1860, by Randall K. Burkett. Burkett is a noted Black History Scholar, and curator of African American collections at Emory University. This brilliant scholarly work used Harry Croswell’s diaries to give a unique widow into the complex issues of slavery in Trinity and in New Haven in the pre-Civil War period.

4. A Short History of the Organs and Music of Trinity Church, New Haven, Connecticut, Prepared for the 200th Anniversary of Trinity Church 1752-1952, By G. Huntington Byles, New Haven: no publisher, 1952. It is in two parts: The Music and the Choirs of Trinity Church

5. A History of Trinity Church, New Haven, by Frederick Croswell, esq. Read March 8, 1868. The paper was written by Judge Frederick Croswell, Rev. Harry Croswell's son; it covers the vexing issues of Trinity's decade long attempt to obtain a proper deed for the church, and ends in 1812 with the death of Rev.Bela Hubbard.

6. Amos-Doolittle-AN-OLD-NEW-HAVEN-ENGRAVER-AND-HIS-WORK-v1.pdf by Rev. William A. Beardsley, M.A. [Read December 19, 1910.] Amos Doolittle was an early republic copper engraver, silversmith, mapmaker, publisher, "tune book" printer, political cartoonist, founding member of the New Haven Mechanic Society, tax assessor, and brethren of the Masonic Fraternity, who is listed as author or illustrator of over 185 books, 100 Maps, 6 Musical scores, and other formats – with a total of 330 media listing him as “author”. But he is best known as “The Paul Revere of Connecticut”, as he was a silversmith who not only fought in the Revolutionary War, but engraved scenes from it on copper plates and printed them. He was a member of the famous Trinity Doolittle family, he was married in 1797 at Trinity Church to Phoebe Tuttle, just around the corner from his printing shop in New Haven.

7. Trinity Church Parish School and Home, from an article excerpted from the American Journal of Education, 1878. Henry Barnard was an American educational reformer, who lived and died in Hartford. It also contains a brief Consecration Sermon given at the dedication by Bishop John Williams Of Connecticut. The buildings were the gift of Mr. Joseph E. Sheffield, the principle donor of the School.

8. The Beginnings of the Episcopal Church in New Haven, by Rev. Dr. Edwin Harwood, 1895. It begins "ABOUT the year 1750, if a man of the world,--or, as he would have been called in those days, a man of wit and fashion,--had seen the little town of New Haven, and known anything of the tastes and the pursuits of its people, he would have described it as a well planned but thinly settled country village, the inhabitants of which were devoted to saving their own souls, to money making, and to perpetual quarreling with each other on topics of theological interest." He ends his history with the advent of Dr. Hubbard in 1767, and closes with the ecumenical observation that, “It is a matter of great joy to think that the old bitter theological and ecclesiastical passions are buried and gone. We are living in a better day.” The discourse was written ten years after a series of tragic events for Hardwood’s family, ending when his own daughter converted to Catholicism on the eve of her death from malaria, and was buried with both Roman Catholic and Episcopal ceremonies.

9. The Ministers of Trinity Church Parish, New Haven, Connecticut, by Neil C. Olsen, June 2015. The Article covers the list of all Anglican ministers that are known to have been responsible for the region covering the modern day parish of Trinity Church, New Haven, from the itinerant missionaries in 1705 to the installation of Rev. Dr. Luk De Volder as Rector in 2011.

10. Sketches of Church Life in Colonial Connecticut, Being the story of the transplanting of the Church of England into forty two parishes of Connecticut, with the assistance of the Society for the propagation of the gospel; written by members of the parishes in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the society, Edited by Lucy Cushing Jarvis, was written in 1902, and contains this section on Trinity Church, New Haven.

11. Why are we named Trinity? A speculation on why two churches/parishes were named Trinity in Connecticut in 1727 when the convention was to name any non-self-supporting parish "Christ Church", by Neil C. Olsen.


Artifacts

Click here to view a collection of digitized pamphlets, brochures, tickets, photographs, paintings, etchings, images, and memorabilia of the parish.


History Ministry

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The Trinity New Haven Historical Society was formed on December 5, 2011. Comprised of members of Trinity Church and interested people in the wider community of New Haven, Connecticut, it celebrates the role the church has played in the history of the parish, the City of New Haven, the state of Connecticut, and America. Read more here.


National Episcopal Historians & Archivists 

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Trinity is a proud contributor to the work of the National Episcopal Historians & Archivists, with Trinity’s own Peg Chambers serving as a member of NEHA’s Board of Trustees and coordinating NEHA’s National Convention in 2018 at Trinity Church on the Green. NEHA provides a forum for exchanging ideas, gives mutual support, and serves as an archival and historical network for any who preserve, explore and share the historical dimensions of the Episcopal Church. Begun as an outgrowth of the Church Historical Society in 1961, NEHA seeks to answer the needs of church officials and leaders who know attention should be given to nurturing congregational, diocesan, and institutional historians, registrars and archivists.

Visit NEHA’s website to learn more!


Historic Stenciling Project

Developed and coordinated by Peg Chambers, a unique Historic Stenciling Project has now been completed at Trinity Episcopal Church, New Haven. This project was supported by grants from The Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and  the National Trust for Historic Preservation, both matched by Trinity Church.

Learn more here.


The Plaque is Back: How George Washington Returned to Trinity in 2015

George Washington visited Trinity one week after his first inaugural on April 30, 1789, and worshiped at the First Church, at what is now our side or “Washington altar”.  In 1932, the Daughters of the American Revolution Commemorated this event with a brass plaque.  The plaque was stolen in 2011, but it was found! On July 4, 2015 there was a re-dedication ceremony to put the plaque back where it belongs — at the location of the First Trinity Church at 91 Church Street. Here is the New Haven Register article “Plaque citing George Washington’s visit rededicated at original Trinity Episcopal site in New Haven” on the dedication ceremony, including pictures of Bruce Belmore as George Washington. Here are two newspaper articles on the amazing story of it recovery.  George Washington was Rescued here from the New Haven Independent, and Historic evidence that George Washington visited New Haven rescued, with help from modern technology from the New Haven Register. 

The flyer from the 2015 Re-Dedication of the George Washington Plaque.

The flyer from the 2015 Re-Dedication of the George Washington Plaque.