More on York’s Endangered Trinity UM Church
Newspaper clipping, 1896
As promised in my previous post, I checked the Trinity Evangelical/ Trinity EUB/ Trinity United Methodist Church file at York County Heritage Trust. Besides copies of original church records, such as baptisms, I found directories, anniversary history booklets and images of the church over the years. The images and information in this post are from that file at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives.
The sanctuary, the front part of the building as it stands today, was designed by noted York architect Harry E. Yessler, one of the architects to come out of the regionally famed Dempwolf architectural firm. The contractor was Gilbert & Co., and the church was dedicated on Jan. 27, 1897.
Window and exterior of Trinity from 75th anniversary booklet
I hope some way can be found to save the original 1897 part of the church, with its outstanding architecture and stained glass windows. See below for more images and more on the building and on the chapel that preceeded it.
The founding members of Trinity in 1871 were mostly from the Bethlehem Evangelical Church, which, according to Trinity history, was a German language congregation. Trinity founders were younger English speaking people, and it was called “The English Mission of the Evangelical Association of York, Pa.” In turn, three other Evangelical congregations in York came out of Trinity: Zion in 1898, St. Paul’s in 1899 and Christ in 1901.
Trinity Chapel 1871-1896
The first building on the site, a chapel built by contractor Jacob Sechrist, was frame. In 1896 the first building was sold to the Evangelical church in Felton, where it was re-erected.
The Sunday School building portion in the rear of the original church was added around 1906. The murals on that portion were painted by Wayne Fettro, who painted several of the large murals in the Murals of York program. Trinity Church commissioned Fettro to paint the murals in 2001 “to share the Gospel with the neighborhood.”
Dianne commented on my previous post–she wondered if the stained glass windows were by the Rudy Glass company. I haven’t come across that yet, but a Google search on Trinity did come up with several You Tube videos of Trinity’s striking stained glass windows as well as the murals. You can get to them by clicking this link.
Postcard showing Trinity painted white, c.1917
Click here for more on Trinity Church
