Trinity Church Celebrates 250th Year Today

Trinity Episcopal Church turns 250 years old today and the public is invited to their birthday party!   It takes place on Sunday, October 16 starting at 4:00 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church at High and Court streets in Portsmouth.

Trinity Church is the oldest church in the city and for a time was its only church – Portsmouth Parish.

To celebrate its 250th year, everyone in the city is invited to a parade which will start at High Street landing when the priests and people of Old St. Paul’s church and Christ and St. Luke’s Church in Norfolk will come across on the ferry, as they did when Trinity Church was founded. 

Beginning at 3:00 p.m., all will join the people of Portsmouth to march up High Street to Trinity where there will be a candlelight Choral Evensong.  The program will use the form from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer that would have been used when the church was founded.

The Rt. Rev. Jay Magness, Bishop Suffragan for Federal Ministries and Armed Forces in the Episcopal Church will preach, remembering how Trinity has been the Navy’s church since before there was a United States.  Appropriate music will be provided by Trinity’s retired organist James Derr on the largest pipe organ in a church in Hampton Roads with a specially formed choir. 

Everyone is welcome at this civic ceremony celebrating Portsmouth’s past.  This is not a reenactment, but a celebration of this old church’s ancient role as the center of the Olde Towne.

For questions contact: Dean Burgess at redlion3@juno.com, or call 757/393.0973.

About Trinity Episcopal Church

When William Crawford, founder of Portsmouth, laid out the street plan in 1752, he designated the intersection of High Street and Court Street as the town center and set aside space for a parish church.  In 1761, when the Vestry of Trinity Church was formed with Crawford as a member, the original church building comprised most of what is now the nave.

The first parish priest, the Rev. Charles Smith, was succeeded by a Scotsman, the Rev. John Braidfoot, who became Chaplain of the Second Virginia Infantry Regiment when the American Revolution broke out. Loyalists on the Vestry included Andrew Sprowle, the wealthiest man in the colony and the owner of the Gosport Shipyard.

When the British occupied the town, the church was used by the British garrison.  General Cornwallis left Portsmouth for Yorktown where his army was defeated; Trinity’s old church bell was cracked celebrating his surrender.  The first native-born rector, John Emmerson. Since there was no bishop in Virginia at that time, he had to receive his Certificate of Ordination from the Bishop of London in England and it hangs in the parish hall.

In 1821 the Vestry called the Rev. John H. Wingfield who remained rector for fifty years. During the Civil War the crew of the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (commonly called the Merrimac) worshipped at Trinity before taking to ship to fight in the first battle of ironclads against the Union ship Monitor.  The Union army then occupied the city and the Rev. Mr. Wingfield’s son having refused to sign the oath of loyalty to the United States, was thrown in jail and sentenced to sweep the streets.

Over these years, the colonial pews and side balconies were removed and several fine Tiffany windows added. In the 1890’s Trinity Church was the founder of the King’s Daughters Hospital, which later became Portsmouth General Hospital. In 1893 the baptismal font in the shape of an angel, fondly called Elizabeth, was dedicated.

Among those resting in Trinity's churchyard is Commodore James Barron, the man who surrendered the Chesapeake to the British without much of a fight and who years later killed Navy hero Stephen Decatur in a duel.  Next door to the cemetery is the Art Deco style Commodore Theater, named for the man who won the duel but lost his honor.

For more information, read: Trinity Graveyard Offers Vibrant History of the City.

Trinity Episcopal Church is located at 500 Court, Street, Portsmouth, VA  Tel: 757.393.0432; Fax: 757.397.1403. 

Click here to visit the website for Trinity Episcopal Church.  Click here, to join them on Facebook.

 

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Thanks for reading and sharing...'A New Day in Olde Towne'.

David Cartier

Courtesy photos of Trinty Episcopal Church provided by local photographer Clyde Nordan, Jr.

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