Trinity History

Exterior of Trinity Episcopal Church

     For more than a hundred and fifty years, the spire of Trinity Episcopal Church has pointed heavenward, a landmark of the downtown Fort Wayne area. In December 1863, the rector, the Rev. Joseph S. Large, together with wardens Peter P. Bailey and Isaac DeGroff Nelson, and the vestry commissioned architect Charles Crosby Miller (1831-1903) of Toledo, Ohio, to furnish designs and specifications for a “handsome Gothic” building to replace the outgrown house of worship erected in 1848 at the southeast corner of Berry and Harrison streets. Miller returned an initial set of plans that were later revised after Large suggested that the nave be widened to accommodate more seating. Bishop Jackson Kemper arrived in May 1865 to lay the cornerstone with the walls half way up.  Ten months later, the walls had risen to their full height and the stonework of the tower had been completed, but the contractor warned, “No hope of getting in the building for public worship this winter could be entertained.” However, after many delays and conflicts with the contractor, regular services began in September 1866, and with the installation of an organ and permanent pews in 1868, the building entered fully upon its long and honorable history. It was consecrated by Bishop Joseph Cruikshank Talbot in 1868.
     Constructed of native variegated buff split-face sandstone with Bedford limestone trim, Trinity Church is a Victorian adaptation of 13th century Gothic with the broach octagonal tower characteristic of that style. The building’s generally pleasing effect relies on nicety of proportion and plainness of line, rather than on size or on the richness of carving and detail found in the later, more imposing Gothic styles. Nothing was recorded in the vestry minutes about where the stonework originated. Some have suggested that it was quarried in southern Indiana and brought to Fort Wayne via the Wabash & Erie Canal, but others have suggested that the sandstone was quarried in Wisconsin and brought to Indiana on the Great Lakes.
     Like many churches of the era, it is cruciform in shape. The roof is arch-braced with a collar-beam at the apex of each arch and a single hammer-beam at the base. In the choir, a triple arch of plaster with four supporting columns conceals the functional wood beams, which actually carry the load.

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