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Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church
14th Street
and
Juniper Avenue
Crete
,
Nebraska
Crete
's Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church is one of
four
1870s
wooden board and batten Gothic churches extant in
Nebraska
, and is significant as one of the oldest church buildings in the state.
The
first Episcopalian services were held in
Crete
in 1871, just a few months after the town's founding. A parish was
formally organized in 1872, and the Episcopalians resolved that same year
to build a church.
Nebraska
's first Episcopalian bishop, the Right Reverend R.H. Clarkson, had at his
disposal $2,000 donated by two sisters, Kate and Helen Dater of
New York City
, for the building of a frontier church. The money was to be given to a
parish that would raise $1,000 to build a rectory. The Bishop selected the
fledgling Crete parish as recipient of the donation, and
Trinity
Church
was built in 1872. The building received additions in 1889 and 1896.
An examination of the floor plan and elevations following the 1896
additions reveals that Trinity Church's appendages, and perhaps the
initial construction, were most probably based on Plates 1, 2, and 3
"Wooden Church" in Richard Upjohn's important 1852 publication,
Upjohn's Rural Architecture. This book contained drawings for inexpensive,
practical, modern wooden church buildings, which could be economically
built on the frontier. Upjohn's work spawned a significant group of
quality l9th century American churches reflecting vernacular versions of
the Gothic style imported from England, coupled with the board and batten
siding made popular by Upjohn and others.
Trinity
Church
features lancet, or pointed-arch windows, two tiered ornamental
buttresses, and a quatrefoil window in the vestibule gable. The earliest
portion of the church is comprised of the first four bays of the nave. To
increase seating, a fifth bay was added in 1889, and in 1896, the
vestibule, chancel and sacristy were adjoined. The bays are defined on the
side walls by the non-functional buttresses that were not part of the
original 1872 construction.
The
interior of the church is virtually unaltered, however the walls, floor
and ceiling are covered with non-original materials. A photograph,
published in an 1889 church newsletter, shows that the ceiling was
originally covered with narrow boards laid horizontally, and the walls
were covered with thin strips of wood placed diagonally within simulated
half-timbered sections. The wide-beaded wainscot, installed in 1896, is
still intact along the lower wall under the windows. An ogee arch --
created of reversed curves -- was built in 1896, and separates the nave
and the chancel. A rood beam inscribed with a scriptural verse was placed
above the choir crossing in 1905.
Trinity
Church
was attended by several of
Crete
's early founders, including miller and banker J.R. Johnston, Judge
William Morris and hotel owner Henry Code. Peak membership and substantial
parish activity took place in the 1880s and 1890s.
Trinity
Memorial Episcopal Church was listed in the National Register of Historic
Places in 1979. The National Register is the nation's list of cultural
resources deemed worthy of preservation. A division of the Department of
the Interior, National Park Service, the program is administered in
Nebraska
by the State Historical Society.
Janet Jeffries 5/00
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