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Building History

The Trinity Episcopal Church congregation, formed in 1849, replaced its first prefabricated church building with this larger, prefabricated Gothic edifice, located at Pine Street and Kearny Streets in San Francsico, CA.

A note in the Sacramento Daily Union, indicated on 01/31/1852 that a new Trinity Church would open on 02/01/1853: "Trinity Church Parish, in San Francisco, have recently completed a beautiful edifice, which will be opened for Divine service to-morrow. The church is situated on Pine street, between Montgomery and Kearny, and is a handsome Gothic edifice, thirty-six feet by seventy.” (See "New Church Edifice," Sacramento Daily Union, vol. 2, no. 269, 01/31/1853, p. 2.)

A more extensive description of Trinity Church was made in San Francisco's Daily Alta California newspaper about a week earlier: “Trinity Church—The new and beautiful Gothic church, recently erected by the parish congregation, will be opened for Divine service on Sunday next for the first time. The church is situated on Pine street, between Montgomery and Kearney streets, upon the middle of the fifty vara lot purchased by the ladies of the parish. The church is 36 feet by 70, and is in the Gothic style of architecture. The nave is 40 feet high, thus affording ample space for sound, and we are informed that there are few churches in the United States where this great desideratum has been more satisfactorily realized than in this church. The chancel end is lighted by what is termed a triplet window, being a cluster of three windows painted emblematic of the Trinity. The middle window is 17 feet high, and all three are filled with stained glass, producing a pleasing variety of colors, and leaving in view the outline of the cross. Above these windows is a triangle window filled with stained glass, the centre forming a star. The side windows are glazed with a color of glass suitable to a proper effect of light inside. The clare story is supported by 8 columns, and the choir is placed at the south end, over the entrance, at a distance of 18 feet from the floor. Altogether, the appearance of the church, with its dark stone plastering (in imitation of brown stone) and the effect of the windows, combined with successful construction for sound, renders it one of the first edifices in point of beauty in California. The outside is well covered with iron, and the church being placed in the middle of the lot, will doubtless render it safe from destruction by fire, should our city be again be visited with this destructive element. “We learn, also, that the valuable services of Miss Coad have been secured as soprano, and it is contemplated to enlarge the fine organ belonging to the church. The pews, numbering seventy-four, are nearly two-thirds rented, and the church has been erected with means derived from the letting of the pews, and a distribution will be made on Monday next, to the subscribers who have paid the pew rents up to that time.”(See “Trinity Church,” Daily Alta California, vol. 3, no. 22, 01/23/1852, p. 2.)

PCAD id: 19167