Trinity Wall Street, the Episcopal Church in Lower Manhattan founded in 1697, has started a new blog. The Archivist’s Mailbag is an effort to publicize the archives and attract scholarly researchers interested in the church’s long and complex history. Multimedia Producer Leah Reddy says that “We like to say that the archives are ‘-the history of New York that nobody knows’, as they only recently became fully accessible and they stretch back to the earliest days of New York City history.”
Trinity Wall Street’s archives go back to 1695, making them an excellent resource for students of history–as well as those who want to shape the future. Trinity’s Archive was made fully accessible for the first time in 2003. In addition to its own history and the history of the city, Trinity’s records shed light on the development of the Episcopal Church and the Dioceses of New York. As landowner since 1705, its archives detail the stories of the New York neighborhoods now known as Tribeca and the West Village. Trinity’s congregants have included Alexander Hamilton and John Jay- among its tenants were Aaron Burr and John Jacob Astor.
Information about the scope of the archives can be found online as well as a guide to the holdings.
There is also an interactive timeline and an interactive search-the-churchyard feature.