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Trinity Episcopal Church in an early glass plate photograph made shortly after its erection in 1884.

Trinity Episcopal Mortuary to be Unveiled After Decades at Saturday Event

Historic Church "Homecoming: Coming Home" to Showcase Community Heritage

October 23, 2010       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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A rare church mortuary recently unveiled will be one of the features of a historic church event Saturday in Bay City.

Trinity Episcopal Church, corner Center and Grant, will open its doors to the public Saturday beginning with tours at 2:30 p.m.

"It's likely no one was ever buried in the mortuary of Trinity," said Patrick Trahan, homecoming committee member, "but we have cleaned out the catacombs area that has been closed up for decades so people can see what it was like."

Paneling that hid the catacombs from the public has been removed, disclosing the arched enclosures that some historians believe were intended for human burial until church interments were outlawed by the state.

Hinges from which huge doors apparently were hung remain and the doors are believed to be stored in recesses of the historic church as yet unexplored, said Mr. Trahan.

Mr. Trahan and Richard Steele of Penzien-Steele Funeral Home have collaborated to create a believable mortuary scene in the catacombs area complete with casket.

"We don't want to scare anybody but it's interesting to see what the dungeon-like areas of the early churches were like," said Mr. Trahan.

The mortuary was used for the storage of bodies that could not be buried during the winter months when the ground was frozen, he explained.

The Saturday event is in the interest of history, as well as religion and culture, as the 2:30 p.m. tour will be followed by a 4 p.m. Festival Evensong by the Battle Creek Boys Choir and re-dedication of the church.

Committee members will welcome the public to hors d'ouevres and refreshments in the parish hall at 5 p.m.

On Sunday at 10 a.m., festival communion and re-dedication of the stained glass windows will take place. (See MyBayCity.com, Jan. 22, 2010, "Trinity Episcopal Church Book Features 22 Stained Glass Windows, History.").

The church has recently undergone renovations including restoration of stonework on upper areas. Elaborate finials knocked down by lightning years ago have been erected as artwork near the office entrance and on the west side of the church.

A tour of the 1884 church will bring back the early days of Bay City. The first church is the current parish hall, noted Mr. Trahan. The church sits on several lots donated by Mrs. Charles Jennison, who was Florence Birney, daughter of Bay City pioneer James G. Birney, first anti-slavery Presidential candidate.

The stone chapel, built in 1883 at a cost of $15,000, seats about 300. The main church, built and furnished for about $70,000 in 1884, seats about 500.

Mrs. Birney, Elizabeth Fitzhugh, was a communicant of the parish that preceded Trinity Church of Lower Saginaw. Fitzhugh Birney, her son, was the first person to be baptized in the pioneer village, the ceremony performed March 3, 1843 by the Rev. Daniel Browne, of Flint, missionary to the Indians and the pioneers of this area.

Fitzhugh Birney later attended Harvard College and was a major in the Union Army in the Civil War, dying of disease in 1864. Three of his brothers and his nephew, James G. Birney IV, also served.

A history produced by Rev. A.A. Butler, rector, published in the Pioneer Society of Michigan Reports. He recalled that in 1846 the village was not served by a minister, a condition that persisted for four years.

"Indeed, the village was strangely destitute of spiritual ministration of every sort. The stores were open on the Lord's Day and liquors were free to all customers. Not infrequently the sick died without the consolations of religion and were buried without the prayers of the church."

Mrs. Birney changed all that by establishing the first Sunday school "for the spiritually neglected children." Her brother, W. D. Fitzhugh, arrived here in 1850 and with his wife helped establish Trinity Church.

The first church was located on Washington Street, on land set aside every two blocks by the first plat of the village made by Mr. Birney in 1843. Trinity Parish was established in 1854 and was the forerunner of the present Trinity Episcopal Church.

Parishioners complained that their services were compromised by the noise of the guns of hunters slaughtering passenger pigeons outside. The pigeons were a delicacy much sought by restaurants of New York and Boston and were hunted to extinction, one of Michigan's most lamented realities.

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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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