USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Trinity church in the city of Boston, Massachusetts : 1733-1933 > Part 2
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The use of hymns, so familiar to-day, is a comparatively modern addition to the Episcopal service. The Trinity records tell that a subscription was taken in 1785 for payment of a singing school, to teach parishioners of both sexes to sing Psalm tunes, for "better and more agreeable performance of that excellent and sublime part of Devotion." Ten years later, a man was employed to lead congregational singing. Later, there was a men's choir. Instruction in singing was given in the Sunday school. Several of the organists at Trinity were leaders in music in Boston.
Meanwhile the first Trinity Church wooden structure was getting old. "An elegant and much admired" plan, by the eminent Bulfinch, for a colonnade on the Summer Street end was considered in 1793, but was laid aside because of the ex- pense involved. Soon after that, there is record of debts in- curred for maintenance. The source of supply seems to have been assessments on the pews. Then a suggestion is made that persons who attend services but pay no pew tax be invited to subscribe. But conditions were evidently not ready for any radical change. The wardens had always acted as treasurers
* A sermon preached on the death of Dr. Gardiner by the Rev. George W. Doane, assistant minister, 1830.
t See History of the Boston Athenaeum, Josiah Quincy, Cambridge, 1851.
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and collectors, and had sometimes even to advance money that officers might not go unpaid. They now complain of the bur- den of collecting.
The year 1829 marks a real advance in Trinity Church, with the opening of the new stone building, and a reorgani- zation of the financial management through appointment of a treasurer. The building committee appointed in 1828 con- sisted of John T. Apthorp; George Brinley; John Hubbard; Joseph Head, Jr .; William Dehon; William D. Sohier ; Edward H. Robbins, Jr .; and Joseph Tilden. The vote of the proprie- tors was two to one for a new church, seventy-six votes be- ing cast. A design following a Greek style was first consid- ered but was replaced by a Gothic design by George. W. Brimmer, an architect who belonged to a well-known Boston family connected with Trinity. The church lot was enlarged by purchase, at a cost of $7,875, to allow an ampler structure. But the decision to authorize that purchase was a close one, sixty-two votes being cast by proprietors. The cost of the new structure was to be $60,000. The parish faced a debt bravely. A new organ soon had to be purchased to replace that of 1744. Ten years after the new building was opened, there was a total debt of about $32,000.
After the old church edifice was taken down, two of the panels on canvas, which had probably been in its chancel and were said to have been painted by John Smibert, containing the Commandments, Apostles' Creed, and Lord's Prayer, found their way onto the walls of Christ Church, Cambridge. Hang- ing in the robing room of the present Trinity Church building are paintings of two cherubic heads, the only material ties with the old building except some silver plate and a few books. By the Clarendon Street entrance there is set into the stone wall a rosette taken from the tower of the second build- ing of 1829, and many stones taken from it are in the foun- dations of the present building.
But a new building did not by itself fill the pews. In 1834,
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THE BEGINNINGS
the new rector, Dr. Wainwright, wrote to the vestry of pe- cuniary embarrassments and of thin congregations. The ap- pointment of a treasurer was good administration, but it did not fill the church coffers. In 1863, the records state that for ten years past the current expenses had exceeded the income from pew rates or rentals. Bishop Eastburn's long rectorate ended in 1866, when the diocese had raised a fund for main- tenance of its head. At that time the Trinity debt was about $24,000. The annual expenses, of about $12,000, were met from the tax on pews and the Trinity share of the income of the Price Fund. In 1867, twenty-one pews were sold at auc- tion by a professional auctioneer, after advertisement in the daily papers. Three were bought by individuals, the rest were bought by the church.
C
The religious society of Trinity Church had been incor- porated by an act of the Legislature in 1831. The proprietors followed with by-laws, by which each pew entitled the owner to a vote in person or by written proxy .* If financial sledding was slow and there was little growth in the congregation, yet some important achievements are to be noted. A Sunday school was established under Dr. Gardiner in 1827. It began with sixty scholars and twelve teachers. It soon had a library of 300 books. A catalogue of Trinity Church Parochial Library was printed in 1845 with titles of 200 books. The catalogue of 1857 was twice as large. A new vestry room was built by subscription in 18 54. The Diocesan Convention records show that the number of communicants, which was 250 when Dr. Gardiner's rectorate ended in 1830, had increased to 450 in 1868. The number of Sunday school scholars had increased threefold; and the gifts to missions and general Church pur- poses had grown largely.
* The revised by-laws of 1911 give one vote only to a proprietor (i.e. owner ) of any number of pews. There were finally listed 13 3 pews in the first church building, 164 in the second building; and there are 219 on the floor of the present building, the galleries being free.
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In 1839, the vestry records speak of a singularly united congregation of parishioners for over a century! But in 1846 came a disturbing incident-the one marked exception to the spirit of breadth and tolerance which has characterized Trin- ity Church. The Oxford Movement had been growing in England. Newman had recently gone over to Rome. Bishop Eastburn, of Evangelical bent of mind, felt compelled to end the term of the Rev. John L. Watson as assistant minister be- cause of certain High Church tendencies. Mr. Watson had bridged over the gap between Wainwright and Eastburn, and was evidently liked and respected. There followed a pam- phlet controversy. The proprietors agreed that any assistant should be acceptable to the rector. Kind words were spoken of Mr. Watson, who resigned. And a clear statement was adopted by the proprietors that, so far as they were concerned, Trinity Church would not take part in any ecclesiastical war- fare! Resolutions of the proprietors, in 1838, had recognized the loyalty due the constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but had declared as to questions of Churchmanship that "The laity of Trinity Church have never taken, and never can take, until they shall have undergone some strange and radical alteration, any voluntary part or interest in these prob- lems, which are utterly repugnant to the principles, feelings and views of their religious association."
Between the long pastorates of Gardiner and Eastburn, there were two rectors for short periods. The Rev. George W. Doane, who was of a New Jersey family, was an instructor in Washington (later Trinity ) College at Hartford, whence he came in 1828 to be the assistant minister of Trinity, Boston. He became rector early in 1831, but resigned in the autumn of the next year, to become Bishop of New Jersey. He was the author of several well-known hymns .* The Rev. Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright was rector from early in 1833, for five
* Life and Writings of George Washington Doane, with Memoir by his son William C. Douane, 4 vols., New York, 1860-1861.
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years. His father, an English merchant, had come to Bos- ton soon after the Revolution; had married here a daughter of a Congregational minister; had gone to England, where his children were born; and had returned to Boston. His son, later the rector, was graduated from Harvard College in 1812, taught school, and was an instructor at Harvard. En- tering the ministry, he was an assistant at Trinity Church, New York, and then rector of Grace Church there. He again became an assistant at Trinity, New York, and had been Bishop of New York in 18 52 for a short time, when his health broke.
In the last chapter of this book are given the names and dates of service of all the rectors and assistant ministers, ward- ens and vestrymen, clerks and treasurers, for the two hun- dred years of parish life. Seven of the rectors became bishops, as did three of the assistant ministers. The list of wardens and vestrymen includes many men representative of Boston's best citizens. But an honor roll of men and women who have notably served a church during two hundred years cannot be made up fairly. It would include many ushers, musicians, Sun- day school teachers, parish visitors, and others. For example, there were two women, intellectual, and of rare spiritual gifts, who taught large classes on Sundays in Trinity Church for thirty-three years each, beginning in 1871. Miss Lucy R. Woods, a teacher in the Girls' High School of Boston, taught girls on Sunday mornings. Mrs. Sarah Wyman Whitman, an artist, and a real friend to many persons of all walks of life, taught women in the afternoon .* To those classes Miss Heloise Hersey succeeded. Again, there were "the long and faithful services" as organist, from 1864 to 1891, of Mr. J.C. D. Parker, a grandson of the fourth rector.
The story of the Price Fund is notable. Among the found- ers of Trinity Church was William Price. He was in 1733 one of the small building committee, the managing trustees. He
* Memoirs of Miss Woods and Mrs. Whitman are in Trinity Parish Library. .
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was a vestryman for two years and junior warden for six. He was a contributor to the erection of Christ Church, was a ves- tryman of it, and a warden, and once offered to act as organ- ist for a year without salary. At King's Chapel he had been a temporary organist, had contributed to its rebuilding, and he attended services there in his last years. He had made a large loan to it. He left instructions that his funeral should be in Trinity Church, and that Dr. Caner of King's Chapel should preach the funeral sermon. In early life Price had been a cabi- netmaker, but he is mentioned in 1770 as a "Pickterman," a dealer in engravings and books. When he died the next year, aged eighty-seven, he left as a life estate to his widow and two nieces his brick house and a narrow lot of land run- ning from Washington Street to Court Square. The resid- uary legatees were King's Chapel, or, if the Chapel did not formally accept the estate, then Trinity Church. The income was to be used for the particular church, and for the preach- ing of eight sermons in Lent, yearly, by clergymen of the three Episcopal churches in which he was so interested, and for the poor of those churches. When the last niece died, in 1809, she bequeathed the estate to a nephew, stating her belief that her Uncle Price would never have left it to King's Chapel had he known that the Chapel could deviate from the worship, doctrine, and discipline of the Church of England, to which her uncle was strongly attached. She knew, so she wrote, his abhorrence of all innovation, especially in religious matters. But King's Chapel took possession, having to get the nephew out by judicial action. The effort to unite the clergy of the "three churches named in the will in Lenten services led to a suggestion from one at the Chapel that a special form of lit- urgy should be prepared, acceptable to all. But Dr. Gardiner of Trinity replied: "If we can bear your prayers, surely you may endure ours!" For ten years, King's Chapel held the Price Fund, whose income was increasing, and used the balance of income, after the charges specified in the will were made, for
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current charges of the Chapel. Then Trinity Church insti- tuted legal proceedings to acquire the estate, with an array of eminent counsel. But the issue was closed by a compromise, advised by all the counsel concerned. The estate passed into the control of Trinity Church, which must pay over to King's Chapel, for Chapel uses, one-half of the annual income, after the Price will specific charges are paid; and Trinity Church keeps the other half for its support.
In 1860, when the value of the Price estate was perhaps $150,000, and its annual income, under a long lease of 1842, was only $3,500, the Diocesan Convention of Massachusetts instructed a committee to confer with the rector and ward- ens of Trinity Church over the "very grave question" of whether the surplus income of the Price Fund should not be used for the charities named in the Price will-for the in- crease of the possible hearers of designated sermons and for the poor of Episcopal parishes. But the rector, Bishop Eastburn, who was ever frank and bold, and the wardens replied that the Convention had no power to inquire into the trust. They had fortified themselves by consultation with eminent coun- sel of King's Chapel and by the advice of the Trinity vestry. So the Convention went to the attorney-general of the Com- monwealth, and he filed information with the Supreme Judi- cial Court, on behalf of the Convention "and two poor per- sons of Christ Church." Christ Church itself did not appear as a party. In 1864 the Supreme Court decided that the chari- ties named in the Price will were to receive only the particu- lar sums specified in the will, and the bill was dismissed.
The trustees of the Fund are the rector and the wardens of Trinity Church. The vestry is to supervise their administra- tion of the trust. The will of William Price is submitted to the annual meeting of the corporation of Trinity Church. His little lot of land on Washington Street was recently sold, with the approval of the senior warden of King's Chapel, for nearly a half-million dollars. The amount of net income yearly, di-
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vided between King's Chapel and Trinity Church, is now nearly $25,000.
There is one curious incident connected with William Price and Trinity Church. He was associated with Captain Bonner in bringing out the first pictorial view of the town of Boston. The original plate may have been made before the church was built. The view which bears the date 1743 and is dedicated to Peter Faneuil has a startling detail. The first Trin- ity Church structure may have been attractive within, but its exterior was remarkably plain. But in the Price view, all we see of that church, yet clearly numbered with its name, is a decorative spire, high above Fort Hill, topping the neighbor- ing meeting-houses and crowned with a bishop's miter and a cross. A clear case of imagination !
Trinity Church has reason to remember gratefully the name of another one of the founders and of the building commit- tee of 1733, Thomas Greene. He was a vestryman for twenty- two years, until his death in 1763. Then his heirs, carrying out a plan of his, offered to give the church five hundred pounds, on condition that a like sum should be raised by it, for a perpetual fund for supporting a constant assistant min- ister in Trinity Church or for supplying any other of the Epis- copal churches in or about Boston, if vacancies should oc- cur in them by death, sickness, or necessary absence of their stated ministers. The minister, wardens, and vestry of Trinity Church were named trustees, with absolute discretion in car- rying out the donation, except that certain relatives of Mr. Greene should take part in the selection of assistant ministers, " as long as they lived, and that the selection should always be approved by the stated minister of Trinity Church.
The five hundred pounds required for acceptance of this donation were soon raised, and more, from forty-two sub- scribers, and rules were drawn up for the acceptance of any assistant chosen. If a difference of opinion should arise be- tween any minister and assistant on this Foundation as to
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duties required of the assistant by the minister, the question should be determined by the wardens and vestry. A list of the assistant ministers appointed is given in this book in Chap- ter XIII.
In 1763 and in 1789, allowances were made for the ex- penses of travel to England by candidates for orders, that they might be ordained for the ministry in Trinity Church. Mr. Parker ministered in St. Andrew's Church, Hanover, during a vacancy there. In 1786, when the income of the Foundation had not been used for some years, Mr. Parker suggested that an assistant be appointed, so that he and the assistant could supply not only Trinity but also Christ Church, which was then unable to have a regular clergyman. Again, in 1800, the assistant, Mr. Gardiner, officiated there.
In 1776, the treasurer of the Foundation went to England with papers and some securities. Negotiations with him did not bring a settlement until after twenty years. In 1802, the principal of the Fund was $9,728; the income was $656. The Rev. Mr. Gardiner, who became rector in 1804, allowed the fund to grow with accumulated interest, for twenty-three years. In 1824, special acts of the Legislature confirmed the corporation; specified its power to add interest to principal; and required nine members of the trustees to make a quorum.
In 1827, the fund was $39,700, and the income $2,179. In its sixty-four years there had been a "constant assistant" on it for only twenty-four. When the income was insufficient for compensation, the church made up the difference from its treasury. The approval of proprietors for a choice of assistant was usual. In 1828, when electing the fourth person to be assistant on the Foundation, the trustees recorded that al- though they had power to make a choice, yet they wished to know if the particular selection would be acceptable to the proprietors of the church. And the proprietors approved. In 1835, a committee of the trustees advised, in order that the proprietors might know persons before acting on them, that
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first appointments should be made for one year only. In 1878, a decree was had from the Supreme Judicial Court allowing the trustees to appoint as many as three assistants, who may officiate in other Episcopal churches in the diocese ; and allow- ing such portions of the income as are not needed for pur- poses specified to be used for temporary services in Trinity Church. Illustrations of helpful missionary work in Boston, accomplished through the Greene Foundation, are the min- istrations of the Rev. Thomas M. Clark at Grace Church; of the Rev. Charles H. Babcock at St. Mark's Church ; and, in the West End, of the Rev. Bryan B. Killikelly, arıd, notably, of the Rev. Reuben Kidner, who was for twenty-four years the vicar of St. Andrew's Chapel there. The principal of the Foun- dation is now nearly $84,000, book values, which means the cost prices; the income is about $5,000.
One other benefaction in Trinity Church has come down from its first hundred years. The Rev. Samuel Parker, whose association with the church, as assistant minister on the Greene Foundation and then as rector, lasted for thirty years, died in 1804, leaving a widow and eleven children, of whom eight were minors. A committee of the proprietors then raised $9,649 from ninety-five persons, in sums ranging from $4 to $800. So there was established by the contributors a trust fund to continue forever, "The Widows' Fund," under gov- ernment of the wardens and vestry. The income was to be used for maintenance of widows and orphan children of rec- tors of Trinity Church, who may be in need thereof, begin- ning with Mrs. Parker and the minor children of herself and Bishop Parker. But if at any time there shall not be living any needy widows or minor children of rectors, then the income when over one thousand dollars shall be accumulated for new funds for the help of needy families of assistant ministers of Trinity Church, or, finally, for support of a Bishop of Massa- chusetts who is also rector of Trinity Church. If the capital fund shall become more than sufficient for those purposes, as
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specified, then the surplus may be used for "such other object connected with this church" as the wardens and vestry may deem advisable.
Mrs. Parker received the income until her death in 1843, some $150 quarterly. Then it went to Mrs. Gardiner, widow of the fifth rector, until her death in 1849. The widow of Dr. Donald, the tenth rector, received an annuity until her death in 1919. The fund has grown steadily; and income has been used, under the trust provisions, for parish visitors, for pension fund payments of the clergy staff, and for other ex- penses connected with the parish. The principal is now nearly $120,000, book values; the income is about $5,400.
Trinity Church took a leading part in early conventions of the Diocese of Massachusetts from its formation in 1784. Trinity was the strongest parish. But the Episcopal Church was then feeble, even considering the low ebb of all organ- ized religion. In 1812, when the first report of Episcopal work in Massachusetts was presented, there were probably not over six hundred real communicants. Trinity in Boston led with one hundred and fifty; its neighbor Christ Church had sixty; some dozen other churches, scattered over Massachusetts, ranged from fifty communicants to five.
When the Eastern Diocese was formed of all New Eng- land except Connecticut, and Bishop Griswold took up its care in 1811, there were in all that diocese only twenty-two parishes and sixteen active clergymen. A large proportion of the parishes had come down from the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Some of them had little life. But when Trinity completed its first century of par- ish life, three churches had been added in Boston-St. Mat- thew's, St. Paul's, and Grace Church. The Eastern Diocese- then Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hamp- shire-had fifty parishes and two thousand communicants .*
* Readers who wish to know more of the beginnings of the Episcopal Church here- abouts will find it briefly put, by Episcopal leaders, in the Commemorative Discourses published by the Diocese of Massachusetts in 1885; in the Memorial History of
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Such facts as we have given from the history of Trinity Church for its first century and a quarter make a background for what followed. The latter part of that history was becom- ing rather drear, with the church in a down-town location, with pews not filled, with a treasury dependent mostly on pew assessments and in debt. Because of those conditions, we honor highly the parish leaders from 1868 to 1877, who had vision and courage to begin a new era of parish life.
We have given the names of the committee which built the first church edifice and administered the affairs of Trinity Church in its earliest infancy, which was not easy ; and we have given the names of those who had the courage, despite op- position, to enlarge the church lot and build the second edi- fice, which was durable, dignified, churchly. Mr. Brooks in his historical sermon gives hearty appreciation of the services of the building committee of 1872-1877 and especially of its small executive committee. But he does not name them, except Mr. Dexter, who died just as their work was beginning, after a long service as vestryman and warden. This building com- mittee consisted of George M. Dexter; Charles H. Parker; Robert C. Winthrop; Martin Brimmer; Charles R. Codman; John C. Ropes ; John G.Cushing ; Charles J. Morrill; Robert T. Paine, Jr .; Stephen G. Deblois; and William P. Blake. The exec- utive committee, appointed in April, 1873, was Messrs. Parker, Paine, and Charles W. Galloupe. In 1877, that committee could report to the proprietors that the new church buildings just consecrated, free of debt, and the ample lot on which they stood, had cost $660,539. From the old Trinity estate on Sum- mer Street with its ruined church had been received the sum of $428,239. Much money had been courageously raised. Char- acteristic of Phillips Brooks was the letter which he wrote, on the consecration, to Mr. Paine, his college classsmate and close
Boston, published in 1881, Vol. 3, Chapter 10, "The Episcopal Church," by the Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D .; and in The Religious History of New England, The King's Chapel Lectures, published in 1917, Chapter V, "The Episcopalians," by the Rev. George Hodges, D.D.
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friend, of his grateful obligation to Paine for untiring work for the church. The senior warden, Charles Henry Parker, had given much of himself to its service. But both the building committee and the proprietors recorded their obligation to their beloved rector, for his taste, zeal, patience, faith-"He has been himself the inspiration of architect, builders and committee !"
New Trinity Church was the greatest work of the archi- tect Henry H. Richardson, as the architects of Boston wrote later, on the tablet which they placed on the cloister wall. His own description of the plan and building of the church is given in Chapter XII .*
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