[Greenwich Village by Anna Alice Chapin]@TWC D-Link bookGreenwich Village CHAPTER II 24/36
But one was looked down upon accordingly. It is not hard to make for oneself a colourful picture of a typical Sunday congregation in these dead and gone days.
Trinity was the Spiritual Headquarters, one understands; St.Paul's came later, and was immensely fashionable.
Though it was rather far out from Greenwich the Greenwich denizens patronised it at the expense of time and trouble.
A writer, whose name I cannot fix at the moment, has described the Sabbath attendance:--ladies in powder and patches alighting from their chaises; servants, black of skin and radiant of garment; officers in scarlet and white uniforms (Colonel "Ol" de Lancey lost his patrimony a bit later because he clung to his!)--a soft, fluttering, mincing crowd--most representative of the Colonies, and loathed by the stiff-necked Dutch. Trinity got its foothold in 1697, and the rest of the English churches had holdings under the Trinity shadow.
St.Paul's (where Sir. Peter Warren paid handsomely for a pew, and which is today perhaps the oldest ecclesiastic edifice in the city, and certainly the oldest of the Trinity structures) was built in 1764, on the street called Vesey because of the Rev.Mr.Vesey, its spiritual director.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|