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Trinity History

Historic Edifice from side

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Building and Grounds Since its completion in September 1866, 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 members of the vestry, commissioned architect Charles Crosby Miller (1831-1902) 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. According to tradition, Nelson is credited with finding Miller through his business contacts in Toledo. The Rt. Rev. Jackson Kemper, pioneer bishop of the Episcopal Church in the Midwest, arrived in May 1865 to lay the cornerstone, at which time the walls had risen about half way. As work continued that year, the walls were completed and the stonework of the tower finished, but the contractor warned, “No hope of getting in the building for public worship this winter could be entertained.” After several construction delays and cost issues with the builder, 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 history.
     Constructed of native variegated buff split-face sandstone with Bedford limestone trim, Trinity Church is a Victorian adaptation of thirteenth-century Gothic with the broach octagonal spire characteristic of that style. A tradition exists that the stones were quarried in southern Indiana and brought to Fort Wayne via the Wabash & Erie Canal, but more recent evidence suggests that the stones may have been quarried in Wisconsin and brought via Lake Michigan to Indiana and then overland by wagon to Fort Wayne. When new stone facing was added to the rear of the church, outside the classroom building, the stone match was found in Wisconsin.
Trinity's windows point heavenward in Gothic style, and its Great Window dominates the façade in front, a characteristic of the Gothic Revival style. The spire, originally of wood shingles, was sheathed in copper in the 1930s as a way of better ensuring its preservation, its green patina easily recognizable in the city skyline. Much of the slate roof dates from the early twentieth century, and a cross can be discerned from its variegated design.
    On the right corner, to the right of the Great Window, is a smoke stack, which originally served a functional purpose, since the church edifice, when it opened, had a coal-burning furnace. The stack was first topped with a cone-shaped finial, which, by the 1880s, was replaced by a second finial of more modest design. It now lacks a finial altogether after the stack was extended in the early twentieth century.
     Like most Gothic churches of the era, Trinity Church 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, with purlins that actually carry the weight of the roof. Each of the wood trusses is held in place at the bottom by a stone corbel, each of which is decorated with a star design. Each of the trusses contains a trefoil circle, inset between the arch, rafter, and hammer beam. Originally varnished, they were painted in the 1920s and later stripped and restored more closely to their original appearance.
    In the choir, a half-dome ceiling is supported by four Corinthian columns with heavily-decorated capitals. The arches conceal the functional wood beams, which actually carry the load. During renovation work in 1985, construction workers discovered that the roof was never properly anchored to the walls, which was eventually remedied after much restoration work. The original purlins were removed and replaced with new ones to reinforce the roof.
     American appreciation of the Gothic architectural style sprung from a desire to emulate an earlier European form and became especially popular with High Church Anglicans, who embraced the Oxford Movement in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Its proponents desired the rediscovery of the church’s ancient Catholic heritage and rituals and saw Gothic as the only appropriate style for a parish church. Gothic Revival became so popular with other Protestant denominations by the third quarter of the nineteenth century that the style was found almost universally across the Christian spectrum. The generally-pleasing effect of Trinity's edifice relies on the nicety of its proportions and plainness of its line, rather than on size or on the richness of carving and detail found in the later, more imposing Gothic styles..
     The part of the church known as the Parish House extends to the west of the original edifice. It was built in 1956 under the design of Fort Wayne architect A. M. Strauss in order to give the church additional classroom and meeting room space. The use of split-faced sandstone harmonizes with that of the original building. A portico with an entrance can be seen on the right, but the main entrance to the Parish House is from the west. A porte cochère was completed to the west of the church in 2016 through a bequest from the estate of Francis Thompson and others, allowing easier access to the building by persons with disabilities.
    The Garth consists of the church’s yard and gardens, which is enclosed on three sides by the main church edifice and Parish House. Here are interred the ashes of many devoted members of the church. It serves as a place of reflection and renewal. The large stone sign was presented in 1963 by Edna Lord in memory of her husband, Manley Everett Lord, who died in 1958.
   The stone labyrinth, located near the corner of Berry and Broadway, is designed after the style of a medieval one at Chartres Cathedral in France. Added to the church in 2016, it is open to the public for religious devotion, prayer, and self-reflection. The three steps of a labyrinth walk include, first, releasing or clearing the mind of all distractions. Open the heart and quiet the mind. Second, be prepared to receive when you reach the center. Pray and meditate, and stay as long as you need in order to obtain what gifts the labyrinth has for you. Finally, as you return by following the same pathway in which you went in, allow yourself to be healed. Prepare your mind to join with God and feel His empowerment as you return to face the world. Labyrinths have been shown to spark intuition, solve problems, and can even serve as therapy for overcoming illness.