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TRINITY CHURCH (Episcopal)  Landmark

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Richard Upjohn 

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Burned During War, Trinity Is Home
To Monuments, Hamilton Grave

Trinity Church, which was burned during the Revolutionary War, saw the official end of the conflict and is the resting place of many martyrs of the revolution, including Alexander Hamilton.

The church was chartered by King William III in 1697 and received a large grant of real estate west of Broadway. Much early patriotic activity in New York occurred near the church, especially in the Coffee House on Wall Street. Parisoners were leaving church as an express rider from Boston arrived to tell that war had broken out with the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Trinity burned in the fire of 1776. The British seized the non-Anglican churches in the city and used them as prisons and barracks. That doesn't mean they paid particular respect to the ruins of Trinity. They fenced off the churchyard and hung lanterns in the trees, using it as something of a pleasure garden. The burning of Trinity left St. Paul's chapel further north as the center of religious life in the city during the remainder of the war, and as New York served as the capital of the new nation.

Hamilton was a brilliant aide to Washington during the war. He came to prominence in the new Republic as the youngest of the 55 framers of the U.S. Constitution. He was the first secretary of the Treasury and founded the country's first central bank. Hamilton was mortally wounded in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.

In the church yard, in addition to Hamilton's grave, there is a memorial to the unknown martyrs of the revolution buried on the grounds. There is another Society of the Cincinnati memorial for the 16 officers of the Continental Army and Navy buried in the cemeteries maintained by the church. There is also a memorial to the thousands of Americans who died in prison ships in New York harbor.

Trinity's beautifully kept chuchyard predates the church's establishment by Royal Charter in 1697. Initially it was a Dutch burial ground. Among the 1,186 graves are those belonging to William Bradford, printer to the U.S. Goverment for more than half a century; to Robert Fulton, the first person to successfully apply steam power to ship locomotion; and to Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury.

A reminder of Trinity's regal beginnings is the heroic statue in the southeast part of the cemetary near Broadway. It is of John Watts, the last Royal Recorder of the City of New York, who died in 1863. He served the newly independent country as a U.S. Congressman, endowed an orphanage, and was a co-founder of a public health clinic.

When the British evacuated the city on Nov. 25, 1783, the Americans marched into New York and stood at parade rest on Broadway near Trinity Church as a salute of 13 guns was fired marking the end of the war.

Broadway and Trinity Church. 1830

John William Hill (American, b. England, 1812–1879)
Watercolor
The Phelps Stokes Collection NYPL

When the first aircraft hit New York's World Trade Center during the morning rush-hour on Tuesday September 11, young children were arriving at Trinity Wall Street's pre-school, staff were on the streets around the center, and Archbishop Rowan Williams of Wales was preparing for a day's videotaping with Trinity Television.

The Rev. Dr. Daniel P. Matthews, rector of the Parish of Trinity Church, and a group of colleagues were in a meeting in the parish's office tower three blocks from the center.

"We were on the 24th floor, which has a view of the World Trade Center, when we heard the sound, and looked up to see a ball of fire coming from one of the towers. A few minutes later, we saw the second plane hit, and again a ball of fire erupted," he said. He was soon down in the building's lobby, reassuring shocked staffers as security staff sought guidance on the safest response.

Before the first blast, staff on the streets around Trinity heard what to some sounded like military jets carrying out a low fly-past before hearing the blast. Within minutes, pieces of paper were raining from the sky onto the church, the churchyard and the surrounding streets.

In Trinity Television's studio a small group of shocked visitors gathered as Trinity's director of television, Bert Medley, asked Archbishop Williams to lead the group in prayer.

The Rev. Gay Silver went to minister to the teachers and pupils at the pre-school. The Rev. Lyndon Harris, who heads the ministry at historic St. Paul's Chapel across the street from the World Trade Center, set out for the chapel to see how he could help there. Before he arrived, the second aircraft hit the center and he was forced to return to Trinity to avoid flying debris.

The Rev. Stuart Hoke, executive assistant to Dr. Matthews, was among those in the church leading prayers and hymns for shocked passers-by some time later when a tower at the WTC collapsed. The power was cut. Some of the congregation fled into Broadway, while others remained in the nave. Trinity's office tower shuddered and dust began to penetrate the building down lift shafts from the top.

Staff who tried to leave the building found the lobby filled with dust, and were forced to return to upper floors to breathe. Outside, the pall of dust that had settled over the financial district with the tower's collapse had made it dark as night.

Staff designated as fire wardens gathered at the pre-school to evacuate the children to the basement. Other staff searched the building, looking for places which were both as low down in the building and as dust-free as possible. Once breathing masks had all been handed out, towels in the pre-school were torn up and soaked in water for people to breathe through.

When the order to evacuate the office block came, Trinity staffers and pre-school children filed out under the direction of security staff and fire wardens. They streamed down Greenwich Street at the back of the building, heading through the gloom and holding masks or towels to the their faces, to the south end of the island of Manhattan. When they heard the sounds of another collapse from the World Trade Center, they dashed for cover in doorways and under alcoves.

Numbers boarded the Staten Island ferry across New York harbor to escape the downtown area, and others were evacuated by buses up the east side and to Brooklyn.

Trinity News, September 11, 2001

....Broadway actually was in a remote and obscure part of the town. Below Crown (Liberty) Street dwelling - houses had been erected, of which a few near the Bowling Green were prodigiously fine; but north of Crown Street all the west side of Broadway was open fields. This unimproved region, beginning at the present Fulton Street and thence extending northward, was the Church Farm.The estate known as the Company's Farm, set aside by the Dutch to be tilled for the benefit of the Company's servants, civil and military, lay between the present Fulton and Warren streets and Broadway and the North River. 

Upon the English conquest, this estate became the private property of the Duke of York. Subsequently, in the year 1670, by purchase from heirs of Annetje Jans, the boundary of the Duke's Farm was carried northward as far as the present Chariton Street; possibly as far as the present Christopher Street. When the Duke of York ascended the throne the property became known as the King's Farm : and as the Queen's Farm upon the accession of Queen Anne. In this last reign, in the year 1705. reserving a quit-rent of three shillings (which was extinguished in 1786 by a payment in gross), the then Governor, Lord Cornbury, granted the entire estate to the English Church on the Island of New York, The farm-house pertaining to this farm-standing very nearly upon the site of the present Astor House-is shown on Lyne's map, immediately to the south of the Broadway rope-walk.

 Later it became a tavern of some celebrity-the Drovers' Inn, kept by Adam Vanderberg. Undoubtedly, the church ownership of this large parcel of land tended to delay its utilization for building purposes, and so helped to retard the extension of the city on the line of Broadway. Even in those early days the strongly American desire to build on land owned in fee operated against the use of leasehold property. Not until the need for the Church Farm became pressing was it taken for improvement on the only terms upon which it could be acquired. 

TO BE SOLD, At Vendue, onTuefday the 12th inft, at the Houfe of Mr John Williams, near Mr Lifpenard's: A Leafe from TrinityChurch, for Old John's Land, for 12 Years to come - ADVERTISEMENT, 1766 ANNEKE OR ANNETJE JANS (? ---1663). 

An early Dutch colonist of New Netherland, famous because of lawsuits concerning her farm between her heirs and the corporation of Trinity Church, New York City. She emigrated from Holland to New Netherland with her husband, Roeloff Jansen, in 1630. In 1636 the latter obtained a grant of 62 acres of land on Manhattan Island , extending from the present Warren Street to the neighborhood of Desbrosses Street, and lying between Broadway and the Hudson River. Soon afterwards Jansen died, and she married the Dutch dominic Everardus Bogardus (q.v.). In 1654, after her husband's death, she secured a patent to the farm in her own name, and later removed to Albany, where she died, leaving her property to be divided among her eight surviving children. 

After the English had taken possession, in 1664, all property-holders were required to secure new titles for their lands. Accordingly, the heirs secured a new patent for the farm from Governor Nicolls, on March 27, 1667. Four years later, March 9, 1671, the property was sold to Governor Lovelace, all of the heirs signing the deed of transfer except the wife and child of Cornelius Bogardus, a son of Anneke and her second husband, who had died in 1666. It is largely upon this omission that the subsequent suits have been based. Upon the recall of Governor Lovelace (q.v.), the Government confiscated the Jans farm, and subsequently granted it to Trinity Church by a patent sealed on November 23, 1705. In 1749 Cornelius Brower, a descendant of the Cornelius Bogardus whose heirs had not signed, took forcible possession of a portion of the farm, and on being evicted began an action against Trinity Church, which was decided against him. In 1757 he made another unsuccessful attempt. Another Cornelius Bogardus took possession of part of the estate in 1784, and held it until he was evicted by the courts in 1786. His son John brought suit in 1830 to secure one-thirtieth of the farm and a proportionate share of back rents. In order to secure the money necessary to carry on this suit, he sent circulars to all the descendants of Anneke Jans asking them to contribute, which they did most liberally untill 1847, when judgment was again given for the church. 

Since then there have been several other suits brought by the heirs, but they have been uniformly decided in favor of the defendants. Consult: Nash, Anneke Jans Bogardus: Her Farm, and How it became the Property of Trinity Church, New York (New York, 1896) ; Sandford's Chancery Reports (vol. iv., pp. 633-672) ; Schuyler's Colonial New York (vol. ii.) ; and Harper's Monthly Magazine for May, 1885. 

*Source: The New International Encyclopaedia Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company-New York Copyright: 1902-1905 

Maerschaick's map (1755) shows that by the middle of the last century the growth of the city, creating this pressing need, had warranted the laying out of streets through the southern portion of 'the Church property, and that five-and twenty buildings had been erected between the present Liberty Street and the palisade. But the stronger tendency of growth, it will be observed, still was towards the northeast. Advance up the middle of the island was blocked by the Fresh Water pond and the western side it was impeded by the marshy valley known as Lipensard's Meadows. From the Bk : In Old New York Janvier, Thomas Orig. Copyright 1894 This bk is available at Barnes & Noble. It is in its 10th printing. 

The following is a time-line to the history of the Church lands and the Church http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/timeline.html Transcribers: Nancy E Lutz Miriam Medina

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