USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > Newport > Trinity church in Newport, Rhode Island; a history of the fabric > Part 3
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Mors mortis morti mortem nisi morte dedisset Janua Salutis semper clausa foret.
This left to Honyman and his heirs all the old Carr land on the south side of Church Street east of the Hicks-Dunbar lot up to the west line of the old church lot-a very vague and indefinite bound-and all the Carr land on the north side, except the James Brown land, as far east as the Sanford estate (Figure 5). Some of the land on the south must have been sold, though no deed is ex- tant, for the Kings held 65 feet of it later, and the fact caused trouble, or at least confusion, as time went on.41
When Spring Street was carried through-and it is one of the mysteries of this search that it seems impossible to discover when or how that was done-it appears as if Mr. James Honyman, Jr., must have bought, perhaps of Stephen Ayrault, whose land 4I John Usher of Bristol and wife Ann (Dunbar) to Joseph Cowley and wife Mary bound east "now in possession of Elizabeth King." (Land Evidence, XI, 159.) George Dunbar, mortgaging to Colony agents, bounds east on land of Jacob Dehane. (VI, Town Rec., Newport Hist. Soc.) "John King to Lewis DeBlois 65 feet on Trinity Street, west on Judge Dunbar, east on J. Honyman." (III, 334, Newport City Hall Records.)
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TRINITY CHURCH IN NEWPORT
bounded the purchase on the north, the land of the Sanford estate between that street and his own former eastern bound on Church Street. Although the deed is nearly destroyed, the key words "southerly on the Church lane" are clear. Another highway is mentioned which, in that place, can only be Spring Street, and the words "en Ayrault" and "Forty one feet or thereabouts" are still legible. In 1772, he sold this land at the east, now the corner of Church and Spring Streets, to Adam Ferguson, the snuff-maker, to whose possession the Haire estate, now on this northwest cor- ner, can be traced. It extends very nearly 41 feet on Spring Street. The lot north of it can be followed back to a sale by Dr. John Preston Mann, in right of his wife Ann, daughter of George Scott and Ann his wife, daughter of Stephen Ayrault. It bounds east on Spring Street 1 20 feet, south on land of the late Adam Fer- guson, west on that of C.G.Champlin and north on that of Susannah Thurston. The width on the Ferguson property is given as 62 feet 3 inches. The present Haire estate is 68 feet, or very nearly that.
To return to the church land and the south side of Church Street, for we have yet to find the east and the west lines of the old church lot. To do this, we must anticipate history a little. By a deed of October 3, 1720, Francis Brinley, of Boston, for "Fifty pounds Currant money of New England" sold to Daniel Ayrault and William Gibbs, wardens of Trinity, a parcel of land bounded south on "a way between the sd land of the sd Francis Brinley and the land of Caleb Carr late of Newport aforesd Esq. Deceased East on the land of Peleg Sanford late of Newport aforesd Esq. Deceased North partly on land belonging to the Reverend Mr. James Honyman & partly on land belonging to the said [Trinity Church]42 The sd premises43 measuring & containing One hundred and one feet on the South line, ninety three feet and a half on the
42 The bracketed words are illegible in the record. Land Evidence, v. 30.
43 The following are from the dedicatory record. Land Evidence, x. 81.
3I
THE CHURCH LAND
North line Forty six feet on the west line and fifty feet on the East line."
It was on this lot that the church of 1725-1726 was placed. If now we state certain facts and make certain assumptions, and if we fit over this plan of the new church the plat of the lot-which is carefully dimensioned in the old deed, though, unfortunately, no angles are given-we can arrive at a pretty close approximation of the location of the line between Carr and Sanford. As facts, we may state:
First: the new church of 1726 was (and still is) the western five bays and tower of the present church.
Second: it was of exactly the same width as now, 46 feet 8 inches.
Third: it was 70 feet and 6 inches long over the corner boards, which means about 71 feet 2 inches on the stone underpinning.
This agrees quite well with the statement of Henry Bull, who, writing in 1810 or thereabouts, says, "The body of the building was seventy feet long and forty-six feet wide."44
If we assume that Brinley, in dividing the lot at its western end from the rest of his land, drew a line at right angles to the present Frank Street, we can construct a fixed quadrilateral, CEFG, Figure 6.
If we lay this out on tracing paper and place it over a plan of the new church drawn at the same scale, as in Figure 6, with the south line continuing the line of the wooden fence on the south- west of the present lot, with the west line of the lot 3 feet 6 inches away from the west line of the tower, to which it is practically" parallel, and with the point B 48 feet (the depth of the other lots) south of Church Street, we shall find that the sloping east line of the lot, CED, which divided Brinley from Sanford, will clear the foundation wall of the church at its northeast corner by about ten inches. That is, the line prolonged will so clear it-the line CD 44 Updike, History of the Narragansett Church, 11, 154.
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TRINITY CHURCH IN NEWPORT
which separated the old church lot, once Robert (2) Carr's, from Sanford on the east-for the new church stood partly on the new lot bought from Brinley and partly on the old lot given by Carr.
It is worth while to note that the church seems to be oriented by the true meridian and not by the compass.
It is practically impossible that the west line should be farther from the church than the position given in the figure, which brings it just out to the paved strip which was always put around the base of a building of any importance, and which is still in place. The church filled the Brinley lot so completely that there is very little possibility of a movement farther west. It will be remem- bered that it even goes over upon the old Carr lot.
This gives us quite closely the line GF in Figure 6, the west line of the Brinley lot. The line AB, between this lot and Church Street-that is, the old west line of Robert Carr's Church of Eng- land lot-is given with great exactness by the old graves. It ran northward on a line with the west front of the tower, between the two lines of graves on the west of the path to the north tower door. All the graves in the first row, which is on the east of the line, are old: the latest is 1783, the earliest 1742; so that all with a legible date are before 1790, the year in which the vestry voted to buy of the Honyman heirs the land which is now the northwestern part of the churchyard. They are thus still earlier than the year 1796, in which the deed was signed. That would prove nothing if the graves in the second row, that west of the line determined, were not all as late, as they should be, with dates from 1792 to 1804.
It is not strange that these old lot lines should have been lost. The vestry itself did not know in 1801 where the west boundary of the Brinley lot was, and appointed a committee "to endeavor to ascertain the true bounds of the land whereon the Church stands, to the westward of said land, adjoining to a lot of land late belong-
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THE CHURCH LAND
ing to the heirs of Samuel Rhodes, and now belonging to Miss Searing."45 The committee probably could not solve the riddle, for no report seems ever to have been made.
45 Mason, Annals of Trinity Church, p. 232.
III The Second Church 1725-1762
T HE Rev. James Honyman, missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, arrived in Newport in 1704. Here he found his new parish al- ready provided with land and with a church. A stranger in the midst of hostile Baptists and Quakers, he not only kept his congre- gation together, but caused it to increase until it had outgrown its first church and was planning under his leadership a new and larger building.
How early Mr. Honyman began serious consideration of his new project, it is impossible to say. In 1723, so says Mason- Major Bull quotes part of the letter as of 1724-the rector writes to the Society that "he proposed the building of a new church, and has obtained near f1000 subscriptions." Mason further states that Mr. Honyman headed the list with £30. Whether this hap- pened in 1723 or 1724, the idea must have been presented to the parish even earlier; for on October 3, 1720, Daniel Ayrault and William Gibbs, who were then the wardens, bought of Francis Brinley a lot on the south of the old church, as has been explained in the preceding section and as will appear in Figures 5 and 6.
It is possible that the idea of a new building was in Mr. Hony- man's mind even earlier. In 1708, he went "to England upon his own private affairs, but returned soon to his cure again.46 Dr. Foote suggests that this visit had to do with "the insolent Riott" of the Rev. Christopher Bridge, who, as we have seen, was worry- ing the Rev. Mr. Honyman not a little, and a glance at the "Reso-
46 Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, quoted by Mason, Annals of Trinity Church, pp. 16, 17.
1
-
-
FIGURE 7 Christ Church, Boston, West Front
35
THE SECOND CHURCH
lutions" which "were agreed to June ye 20th 1709, after Mr. Honyman's return" gives some color to this suspicion. If he merely went home, he would perhaps betake himself to Scotland, but he must in any case have visited London and conferred with the Bishop and the authorities of the Society. Perhaps it is not going too far if we assume some interest in the new churches then to be seen in the metropolis.
Nor is it likely that he was unmindful of the enlargement of King's Chapel, a practical rebuilding, which was going on in Bos- ton from 1710 to 1713.
The dimensions of the lot acquired in 1720, and the way in which the church was later set upon it, with almost no margin on the east and south, a very small one on the west and none at all on the north where the building extended over upon the old Carr lot, make us wonder whether the design of the church did not in- fluence the lot. If it did not, the founders must have had faith added to the foresight which looked to the future acquisition of the Sanford and Brinley land, a faith which we must acknowl- edge was justified.
It is, perhaps, a coincidence merely that Richard Munday ap- pears at Newport in 1714.
Then, in 1722, as Mr. Honyman was well aware, it was deter- mined to erect a new church at the North End of Boston. A lot was bought, the Rev. Timothy Cutler, erstwhile Congregational President of Yale, was sent to England for Orders, and a church (Christ Church) was built (Figure 7). The Rev. Samuel Myles laid the first stone, April 15, 1723.
These remarks are more pertinent than may be thought, for the new Christ Church was not like the old King's Chapel, even in the latter's enlarged form. It was a complete example of the Eng- lish parish church of the Renaissance, and the designer of it was thoroughly acquainted-to say the least-with Sir Christopher
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TRINITY CHURCH IN NEWPORT
Wren's churches. The original King's Chapel had about it the quality of seventeenth-century America-the Tudor flavor which had disappeared from all but the rural domestic architecture of England. In the enlarged Chapel of 1713 we find "capitals and cornices" which were ordered painted "wainscot color." The Ren- aissance, which came in with the royal governors, was asserting itself. The Christ Church of 1723 went much further; it was, in spite of some faults of detail, a London church (Figure 8).
Christ Church was ready for occupation, though "very much unfinished," by December 29, 1723, when Mr. Cutler preached his first sermon in it. While it was in building, therefore, Mr. Honyman was collecting money and materials for his new church, as he writes the Society in 1723.
In 1725, Mr. Honyman reported that the "large new church" was under construction-"his congregation" was now building it. 47
On December 6, 1725, the building must have been covered in, since a meeting of the rector, wardens and vestry was held in "The new church" at which "it was agreed that the work should be carried on with all convenient despatch, and that a Plaisterer should be sent for from Boston for greater certainty of having it handsomely Plaistered."48
In 1726, according to the S. P. G. records, the Rev. Mr. Hony- man reported "that the new church there is nigh finished and will be ready for the Society's present as soon as it can be sent (which present is a plain purple communion cloth, pulpit cloth, and cush- ion), and that the people had given the old church, with all its fur- niture, to a neighboring place .... "49 This fixes the date of the church as 1725-1726. If we had the exact date of Honyman's letter, it would make the time only a little more precise.
47 Report to the S. P. G., quoted by Mason, Annals of Trinity Church, p. 40.
48 Mason, Annals of Trinity Church, p. 40.
49 Ibid., p. 43.
FIGURE 8 Interior of Christ Church, Boston, looking West
37
THE DESIGN
The Design
T HE church as it was at first built consisted of the five west- ern bays of the present building, with the tower (Figure 9). As to the design and whence it was derived, there is no tradition, nor any documentary evidence.
C
K
W
FIGURE 9 Plan of Trinity Church, in 1726
Henry Bull, in his historical account of the parish written in 1810 and printed in Updike's Narragansett Church,5° says simply "The body of the building was seventy feet long, and forty-six feet wide. It had two tiers of windows, was full of pews, and had galleries all round to the east end. It was acknowledged by the
50 This forms chapter XXI, with the subtitle Memoir of Trinity Church, Newport, from 1698 to 1810. Compiled from the Records, by Henry Bull, Esq., with Notes by the Rector, Rev. Francis Vinton (1840-44).
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TRINITY CHURCH IN NEWPORT
people of that day to be the most beautiful timber structure in America."51
No one actually knows who was the carpenter or housewright who built the church, but there is hardly a doubt that Mr. Mason's conjecture, based on the frequent mention of Richard Munday in the records, is correct, and that Munday was the builder. 52
The origin of the design is even more mysterious, beyond the evidence which it presents that it is due, in the last analysis, to Sir Christopher Wren. The scheme, in spite of certain marked and evi- dently intentional differences, so resembles that of Christ Church that it is altogether probable-indeed almost certain-that the latter served as a model. If we do not accept this view, we must as- sume that both were copied with variations from one or more of Wren's London churches, or possibly that they were both built, the one in brick, the other in wood, from one drawing or set of drawings.
While history in the case of Christ Church is as silent as it is about the Newport building, there are two traditions about the design of the Boston edifice. The first is that it was built "from a design by William Price, a local print dealer." This is the state- ment made by the Rev. Charles A. Place in an article "From Meet- ing House to Church in New England."53 Mr. Place says this tra- dition is very strong in Boston.
Price published views of Boston which are of great interest to collectors. He sold prints and books and is referred to as a "Pick- terman," a bit of old Yankee pronunciation. He was a parishioner
5I Updike, History of the Narragansett Church, 11, 154.
52 George C. Mason, Jr., wrote: "Whoever may have been its architect, the men who built Trinity Church ... also built the Sabbatarian church now the Historical Society in 1729 . . . the section of every moulding and detail is the same in both structures. . .. The designs of the galleries, piers and panelling are also the same." (The Georgian Period, 1, 32.) It has been said that the mouldings of the Sabbatarian meetinghouse are also the same as those of the Ayrault house, now destroyed, with which Munday can be definitely connected.
53 Old-Time New England, vol. XIII, no. 4, p. 151.
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THE DESIGN
of King's Chapel, and was a son-in-law of the Rev. Samuel Myles. He helped to found Christ Church, and was a vestryman and warden of that parish. Ten years later, he was one of the founders of Trinity Church in Boston. He had been a cabinetmaker as a young man, and the name "William Price, cabinet maker" occurs in Boston deeds. In the Boston Gazette of April 4-11, 1726, he advertised "all sorts of Looking-glasses ... & Japan Work, viz. Chest of Drawers, Corner Cupboards, Large & Small Tea Tables, &c. done in the best manner by one late from London." His shop was then "against the West-End of the Town House."54 In Octo- ber, 1722, he advertises that "A View of the Great Town of Bos- ton ... will be carried on by subscription." Again in November, an advertisement "is to certify" in regard to this "View," that "the Undertaker, William Burgis, desires all Gentlemen to be speedy in their subscription, in order to send the Drawing to England."55
It appears from this that Price was not an engraver, and that his rare, famous print of Boston was drawn by Burgis and engraved in England. It does not seem that he had any qualifications except those of a cabinetmaker for making the design of Christ Church. It may be that this Price legend arose from the misreading of the following statement made about some of Price's prints in a letter written by Dr. Timothy Cutler, the first rector of Christ Church, to the S. P. G. under date of October 10, 1729: ". . . At the first Opening of my church I had generally an audience of about 400 persons, which is now encreased to about 700 or 800. The Trade and Business of this Town is better represented than I can in a prospect of it, which (with a plan of it) M' Wm Price, a worthy Member of my Church, presents to the Society by my hands."56 If
54 Dow, The Arts and Crafts in New England, 1704-1775, p. 17.
Ibid., p. 16.
56 Foote, Annals of King's Chapel, 1, 325.
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TRINITY CHURCH IN NEWPORT
this were read casually, it might be easy, it seems, to think that the "prospect of it (with a plan)" means a design for the church of which Dr. Cutler has been speaking; whereas it really refers to the "prospect" or view of Boston drawn by Burgis and advertised by Price about 1723, with a contemporary map, perhaps that by Captain John Bonner. The rise of the tradition would have been greatly helped by the fact that Burgis shows Christ Church com- plete with its spire before that spire was built, and that the first advertisement of the "prospect," wherein it was stated that the "View"-that is, Burgis's drawing to be engraved which could be seen at Mr. Price's-appeared in the New England Courant of October 1-8, 1722, six months before Mr. Myles laid the foun- dation stone of Christ Church, on April 15, 1723. A later view has a crown, instead of the cross, on the spire.
The second tradition is that Wren's plans for St. Anne's, Black- friars, were "in some way secured" and the church built from them. This is stated in an articleor letter, "The Church in England," pub- lished in The Churchman, April 29, 1899. "When Christ Church, Salem Street, Boston, was built, Wren's plans for St. Anne's, Black- friars, were in some way secured and Christ Church was modelled after them. The present writer (a relative of whom was for many years rector of the united parishes of St. Anne's, Blackfriars and St. Andrew by the Wardrobe) was told this by the late Rev. Henry Burroughs, for many years rector of Christ Church, Boston, who, when in England, made a point of visting the Blackfriars [sic] church for the sake of verifying the story which he had heard. The resemblance between the two buildings will be recognized by any visitor."57
The Rev. Mr. Burroughs, in his Historical Account of Christ
57 The Churchman, vol. LXXIX, no. 17, p. 616. The last sentence needs some qualification. St. Andrews and Christ Church are not at all alike in external appearance. In the interior the resemblances are considerable, but they seem hardly such as would strike a layman, ex- cept for the barrel vault and the square piers.
A. Trinity Church, looking East
1
B. Christ Church, looking East
FIGURE IO
--
FIGURE II Bay of Nave, Trinity Church, North Side
4I
THE DESIGN
Church, December 29, 1873, did not, however, state a tradition, but rather advanced a theory which apparently was commonly held. He says: "The resemblance of the architecture to that of churches built at the same period in England has given rise to the opinion that this church is modelled after one of the designs of Sir Christopher Wren." The idea gained strength in his mind be- tween 1873 and 1899.
If we assume that Price obtained the design, but did not orig- inate it, these two traditions, or the tradition and the theory, may be variants of one original.
St. Anne's, Blackfriars, was not rebuilt after the Great Fire in London. The parish was united with that of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, and the latter is the church referred to by The Church- man's correspondent. Whether Sir Christopher Wren, before it was decided not to rebuild St. Anne's, had made any plans for that church which could have been used here, it seems now im- possible to find out. That some Wren church in London was more or less copied is certain, and it is very likely that Price had some hand in the matter. Dr. Burroughs thought St. Andrew, Wardrobe, was the model. Mr. Mason says, "The plans were evidently sent out from England. The general features of the interior are not unlike those of St. James, London."58
Here are two churches suggested as models. An examination of them shows that the designer of Christ Church was well acquainted with both, and with St. Andrew's, Holborn, as well, and that who- ever built Trinity did not copy Christ Church exactly, but varied from it and from both the London examples, drawing upon others, with, seemingly, a first-hand knowledge of all he used.
How closely then did Munday, who almost certainly built Trin- ity, follow Christ Church ?
58 Mason, Annals of Trinity Church, p. 51, note. By St. James, London, he means St. James's, Piccadilly, otherwise called St. James's, Westminster.
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TRINITY CHURCH IN NEWPORT
In plan, both churches are basilican, that is, they have, as ap- pears in Figures 8 and 9, a nave and two aisles which are each sepa- rated from the nave by a row, not of columns but of square piers. Each has five bays, or spaces between the piers.
Christ Church is of brick and Trinity of wood. The former is 50 by 70 feet, the latter 46 feet 8 inches by 70 feet 6 inches.
Christ Church had a projecting chancel at the east end and a steeple which projects in the center of the west front. Trinity had no apse.
The views of the interior of Christ Church and Trinity Church in Figure 10 (A and B) show that each church has galleries over its aisles.
In Christ Church the ceiling of the nave (Figures 8 and IOB) is a barrel vault; in other words, a horizontal half cylinder, of ellip- tical curve. This springs from a horizontal cornice above the crowns of the arches which span the bays between the piers. From the top of each of the piers an entablature runs at right angles to the line of the gallery over to the respond or pilas- ter on the outer wall of the building. From these entablatures spring semicircular barrel vaults which are, of course, at right angles to the central vault. In the outer wall, in the center of each of the five bays, covered by these vaults, is a round-headed win- dow. Similar windows are set in the wall of each aisle below. At either end of each aisle and gallery is another round-headed or "compass" window, which does not center upon the axis of the aisle, but is crowded up against the respond, or pilaster, at the end of the line of piers. The window in the south aisle is not directly under that in the gallery above.
It is needful to be minute in this description, for in this interior lies the key to the problem: the ceiling and its supports are in Wren's manner and in that of no one else. In fact, these two churches alone in America have the supports arranged in this
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FIGURE 12 The Chancel from the North, 1924
FIGURE 13 St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, looking East
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THE DESIGN
manner-in two stages-while others possess the barrel vault and one, at least, the cross-barrels.
In Christ Church the piers are in two stages, with a pedestal be- tween them which is intended to carry the line of the pier from the floor to the spring of the gallery arches across the gallery front. The piers at the aisle level are cross-shaped in plan, or square with a panelled pilaster projecting on each face; at the gallery level they are square and are fluted.
In Trinity the piers are also in two stages: the lower, square and not cross-shaped in plan and panelled; the upper, square and fluted, with the same panelled pedestal at the gallery level. They also carry an entablature at right angles to the gallery with the trans- verse barrel vaults springing from them, but there are no arches with a cornice above on the side toward the nave, since the nave ceil- ing is differently managed, as will be seen in Figure 10. This ceil- ing may be described as a very flat, almost four-centered groined vault, that is, a barrel vault (Figure 11), which is intersected over the gallery openings by the semicircular barrel vaults above the galleries. This will be plain from a little study on the spot.
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