A History of Trinity and St. Philp's Cathedral: Slavery, Racism, and Renewal in "God's House"
Address delivered by Anne Calloway, Historian
Diocese of Newark Racial History Committee
Stations of Reparations Service, March 25, 2023
St. Peter’s Church, Freehold, New Jersey
Edited by Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski
Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I just want to preface this by saying I’m not a “legal beagle” historian, but when your bishop sends you a letter out of nowhere and says you have to do something, you just do it! So, I got a letter from Bishop Carlye and she said, “I want you to serve on the racial history committee.” I said, “What does that mean?” She [said], “You’re going to do the history of Trinity and St. Philip’s.” And I said, “Ohhhhh!”
Now I’ve been a member of Trinity Cathedral for over fifty years. I’ll be eighty-seven this year. I’ve been an Episcopalian since 1936… So, I’ve seen a lot of history. I originate from the Diocese of Los Angeles. I attended a small Community Church. Our black churches were always named St. Martin, St. Philip, or St. Barnabas. I attended St. Martin. And back in those days, we too had priests in charge and we also had… supply priests... So, that means this is something we’ve been going through a lot, okay?[1] At any rate, I came to New Jersey and I joined the Church of the Epiphany. That was the first Black church I joined that wasn’t named St. Martin, St. Philip’s, or St. Barnabas. And when I left there, I joined Trinity Cathedral.
In 1733 Newark suffered a torrential rainstorm that lasted several days. It was after this storm that Colonel Josiah Ogden, a faithful member of the First… Presbyterian Church (which is our neighbor down the street), hitched up his horse and harvested his wheat. If not harvested the wheat would have spoiled. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and the word of this deed quickly got around. Colonel Ogden was disciplined for Sabbath-breaking. Ogden, the son of Elizabeth Swaine, did not take this harsh criticism and punishment lightly. The controversy was long and bitter. Finally, Colonel Ogden withdrew from the church stating “I’ll have a church to attend if I have to build one myself.”[2]
Thus, Trinity Church became Trinity Church. And that’s the beginning of Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral.
Colonel Ogden was a very rich man. He… owned… mines… [including] one in Boonton [and one in Ringwood], which [he jointly] owned [with various family members][3]… I’m still trying to figure out [which] is which… [in] this historical game … You read [about something] and the next week you go and you read [about] it again [and] it’s something totally different [in a different source]! Because we’ve had wheat, corn, and tobacco [recorded in different sources as the crop] that Colonel Ogden had, and nobody knows which one it really was. So I just go with wheat and call it a day. And the reason I do is because on the spire of our Steeple, there is a [sheaf of] wheat… that was… carved there, in remembrance of Colonel Ogden because he actually was the first founder of Trinity Church.
Trinity Church has such a rich history. But when you think about slavery… it is a proven fact… that slavery was apparent and slavery was there. And we know that Colonel Ogden didn’t take that wheat out of those fields himself and take it to his barn. We also know that Colonel Ogden did not work his own mines. So all that was done by slaves.
We also know that the balcony that was built in the cathedral, was not built to house extra communicants, but was built for the slaves of the owners who owned the pews in the Cathedral. Because, you see, they bought pews. They paid money. They took care of those pews. And, of course, they had to buy the box that the slaves [sat in too]… So if you ever come to our church and look up at our balcony, you will see that it’s like boxes in the theater. And each slave owner owned one of those boxes where his slaves sat. So the church welcomed the slaves and their families. They baptized over a thousand children, five hundred and-some-odd families, during that time. But they condoned slavery. That’s very interesting. They condoned it, but they welcomed you.
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| Figure 1: Slave balconies at Trinity Cathedral, Trinity Cathedral Church, Rector and Broad Streets, Newark, Essex County, NJ HABS NJ,7-NEARK,4- (sheet 1 of 10), National Parks Service, Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons |
And so the rich history of Trinity [is]… so huge that it would take me three and a half days ([and] we’re not going to be here that long) to tell you everything that I found. But I would like to invite you to something that I found very interesting, and that is the exposé Dr. Pruszinski has on your New Jersey reparations website.[4] The exposé he’s done of Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral is absolutely on point and absolutely beautiful, and I invite you to read it because it is your history. You see, at that time, Trinity and St. Philip’s was under the diocese of New Jersey. There was no Newark diocese. Everybody was [in] one place. And so I also found that many of the other churches had slaves too [and] many of the ministers had slaves. So slaves were everywhere. I tell you, we [Episcopalians] were very powerful people. I think we still are. At any rate, the slavery continued.
Trinity and St. Philip’s was built in [1743], and it was finished in one year. “It was made of hewn stone. It was 63 feet long by 45 feet wide, 27 feet high. The steeple was 95 feet high.”[5] It is now 190 feet high today. And it’s twenty feet square, so you can see how big it is. I was sharing with Father George this morning the reason that the steeple can be seen from an airplane or any place you come [from] as you come into Newark, is [that] back in the day they were fighting the [Presbyterians]. And so they built that (this is Josiah Ogden now)… they built that steeple [so high, as a sort of competitive threat] to let the [Presbyterians] know they were out of business in Newark… I found that to be very funny and [so] I [said] “let me share that with you today.”
Colonel Ogden had a [cousin][6] who was a minister… and he almost became the first bishop of New Jersey… There were three times that he was put up for bishop, and three times he was voted down, and each time [it] was for the same reason: they said he was too Methodist. So I said, “Well, gee, what was going on in those days?” Politics in the church, right? “He was too Methodist. We can’t have that,” because there was a lot of rivalry between the churches at the time. There’s a lot of history on that as well.
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| Figure 2: Rev. Uzal Ogden (cropped), brother of Josiah Ogden, from Wheeler, William Ogden, 1837-1900. cn; Van Alstyne, Lawrence, b. 1839, ed; Ogden, Charles Burr, 1855- joint ed, marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons |
“Colonel Ogden died before the Revolutionary War and was buried somewhere in the Old Burying-ground.”[7] Now the old burial ground, of course, where slaves were buried as well, was the grounds behind 24 Rector Street, which was [where] the Cathedral house… was built, and it was covered over and became the parking lot. So once we sold the building to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center we had to go and exhume all the bodies. And Jim Churchman, maybe some of you… know the Churchman family who [were] the first black undertaker family (and still very much in business today) in the city of Newark; he [Jim Churchman] took it upon himself to get all the paperwork that was necessary [and] all the history that was necessary, [to] dig up all of those graves, all of those bodies. Some are in columbariums behind the Cathedral and some are buried in Fairmont Cemetery in Newark,[8] and that is where Josiah Ogden is now, in Newark in the Fairmont Cemetery.
My most important piece for today is simple: that out of… slavery always comes a phoenix. And I’m also very happy to share this with you today because now we can’t say anything about Trinity without speaking about St. Philip’s because we are one church. And so when you speak of one, you must give the other one as much credit.
There were several slaves who were communicants of Trinity Church [Newark]. They were of British origin, because most of the slaves came from the islands or from Africa, and interesting[ly] enough, you will find it in a lot of our Black churches, Episcopal churches, that they are predominantly island people. So when you go in, you have to know the dialect… so you understand what everyone is talking about. The names of the founders of St. Philip’s Church, [the historically Black church formed by former congregants at Trinity, Newark] confirmed their British origin: Rector, the Reverend James H. Tyng. The Reverend Tyng was, at the time, the first rector at Saint Philip’s and he was also the headmaster of Newark Academy. I don’t know if any of you know about Newark Academy, but it is a huge… campus now in Livingston, New Jersey across from the mall. It [at times has had as many as] three thousand students, but Mr. Tyng was the principal and the headmaster then. And he was also the CFO and CEO and all the other things. And [the local St. Philip’s church tradition holds that] Mr. Tyng was a black man.[9] Interestingly enough as I went into the historical [materials at] Newark Academy I never found his name listed. That’s not unusual. But he’s in so many other places that we know that he was there.
[Among the founders of St. Philip’s were] also Nicholas Duffin, Samuel Thompkins, John and Peter O’Fake, Elias Ray, and George Mitchell. Now these all sound like English people don’t they? Those were the… names that the slaves took because they took their owners’ names… and the Anglican ancestry can be traced. [St. Philip’s… became a mission in 1847, and] Trinity Church made the difference for St. Philip’s. Trinity Church, because of Josiah Ogden and the other people that worked with him, was a very rich church... They had a lot of property. They owned everything in Newark. And they also supported any missions that they opened and quite a few of the missions, [which became] churches in the Diocese of Newark, were founded through Trinity Church. And they also supported them until they became a parish. And so, when St. Philip’s became a parish, of course, Trinity said, “you’re on your own now. Move it, we’ve somebody else we’ve got to help.” And so that is how Trinity became [critical for the formation of St. Philip’s]…
“The first charter [for Trinity itself] was granted [in] 1746 and a year later was suspended. The present charter was granted in 1748 by George II.”[10] And… the original church structure has been changed because there was a guy named George Washington that came along, and he needed a place for his troops in the hospital. And interestingly enough, the military park [which] was called a training ground, [was] what Josiah Ogden owned, and that’s how Trinity got there. It was there before the military park was a park. It was a training ground. And so he said, well we’re going to put our church right here. It wasn’t even supposed to go there. It wasn’t even supposed to be built the way it is because it wasn’t enough room. It’s one acre with this big church on it, but they put it up anyhow. They said, “we’re gonna do it.”
Now, I wonder who built that church? Again, an unanswered question. That’s why I put it to you that way. It wasn’t Josiah, he was not out there pushing the wheelbarrow, I’m sure. And neither were his communicants. So we know what happened. Some of those slaves built that church. That’s what we’re trying to find out now: Who they were, and how they were brought in. … I’m telling you this historian thing is a trip. I hope I live long enough to keep going, but I’m telling you, I don’t know. It is unbelievable. [Now] to make everything come together:
The original church building was completed in [1743]. The site of the church, according to tradition, was granted by the town of Newark in the Training Place (Military Park). Its original structure was destroyed by fire in 1804, was rebuilt and refurbished in 1810. Its white steeple stood 168 feet facing Broad Street. The church became the cathedral of Newark Diocese in 1942. In 1966 it was united with St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and became known as Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral in 1992.[11]
There is so much history… I find it with the New Jersey Historical Society. I find it in other churches. I have gone into other churches and found Trinity’s history. It is very sweet. I call her God’s house because it was built by the hands of his people. Because it has been destroyed and it’s still coming back up. It has been empty and it still lives. And I believe that Trinity Cathedral was especially anointed by God because it is now and always has been, but now especially, [one of] the oldest Episcopal Church building[s] in the United States of America.
[1] A “Priest in Charge” does not have long-term tenure like a Rector, but only a brief contractual term. “Supply priests” provide even shorter-term leadership. Often, having to rely on short-term leadership solutions like these has been indicative of a lack of support from the Diocesan administrative structures for historically Black churches.
[2] Glenn G. Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church,” at http://newarkreligion.com/episcopal/trinity.php (last accessed October 4, 2023).
[3] And other business partners.
[5] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”
[6] Rev. Uzal Ogden.
[7] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”
[8] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”
[9] Unfortunately Rev. Tyng was not in fact a Black man. There is no record of Rev. James H. Tyng in the scholarship on early Black Episcopalian clergy, and he served as the founding rector for several white congregations both in New Jersey and elsewhere at a time when a Black man holding that position was effectively unheard of. He was in fact the brother of the comparatively better-known Dr. Stephen H. Tyng. For a portrait of Dr. Stephen H. Tyng see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stephen_H._Tyng.jpg (last accessed October 3, 2023). The Rev. James Tyng was part of the early paternalistic oversight of St. Philip’s, Newark from the Diocese of New Jersey. Bishop Doane’s convention address of 1848 refers to his “disinterested zeal” in gathering the congregation, likely a reference to his ministry there being to those not of his own race. See: The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., LL.D., Diocese of New Jersey: The Episcopal Address to the Sixty-Fifth Annual Convention; in Grace Church, Newark, Ascension Day, June 1, 1848 (Burlington: Edmund Morris, at the Missionary Press, 1848), 10).
[10] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”
[11] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”
