St. Michael's Church, Trenton, NJ

St. Michael's Church, Trenton, NJ

St. Michael's Church, Trenton, NJ

A 1703 land grant from Governor Inglesby of the Jerseys opens St. Michael's document collection. It gives four English farmers land to build a church on the hills north of the Delaware falls which they shared with Scot farmers. The latter soon built themselves what was to become First Presbyterian Church (now of Ewing). In the early years, Anglicans and Presbyterians frequently shared worship and church governance, as neither had a full-time minister. St.Mary's (Anglican) church in Burlington had a full sanctuary building since 1703 and was the 'mother church' for the region, often supplying the Trenton area its minister. The founder of Trenton, William Trent, arrived from Philadelphia in 1719, joining the what was to become St. Michael's parish, and by the 1740's land in Trenton proper was given to the congregation by General John Coxe, son of a prominent parishioner from St. Mary's, Daniel Coxe, who was the first Grand Master of the Scottish Rite of Masons on the continent.  St. Michael's original Trenton sanctuary was completed in 1751, then enlarged in 1801, 1819, and the 1850's to its present footprint.

To avoid being embroiled in national politics and endangering its future, the church was closed immediately after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It served as a Hessian barracks and Continental hospital during the war, and worship resumed at the war's conclusion.  It's vestry included David Brearley, who in 1787, as Chief Justice of NJ, served as Chairman of the "Committee on Postponed Parts" in the Constitutional Convention, playing a substantial role in shaping the final document while brokering the decisions that contributed to our current form of government.  In 1801, St. Michael's was used as the location for the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, at which time the current Articles of Religion were ratified. There, at the Annual Convention in 1815 the NJ Diocese was founded and its first bishop elected. Throughout the middle and late 19th century, St. Michael's founded mission schools and churches in and around Trenton. A detailed history of the church was written in the 1920's by Hamilton Schuyler, and is available online.  The documents in the collection were used to write that history and thus far include the parish proceedings from 1750 through the 1850's, the engineering specifications for the 1819 renovations, the church charter, along with birth, marriage, and death records from the period.  An interesting drawing of the layout of pews, which seems to be in David Brearley's handwriting, appears in the parish books. The documents also contain one of our original Books of Common Prayer from the 1740's, with marked-up changes, post-Revolution. 

The parish of the English Church was founded in 1703 on farmlands outside of town. The founder of Trenton, William Trent, arrived from Philadelphia in 1719, joining  St. Michael's parish, and the sanctuary in town was completed in 1751. To avoid being embroiled in national politics and endangering its future, the church was closed immediately after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It served as a Hessian barracks and Continental hospital during the war. It's vestry included David Brearley, who in 1787, as Chief Justice of NJ, served as Chairman of the "Committee on Postponed Parts" in the Constitutional Convention. In 1801 the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States was held there and the current Articles of Religion were ratified.