ESTABLISHING THE CHURCH IN OMAHA: THE ORIGINS OF TRINITY EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL PARISH

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1 ESTABLISHING THE CHURCH IN OMAHA: THE ORIGINS OF TRINITY EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL PARISH On July 4, 1854, a small number of future Omahans then residing in Council Bluffs because the territory had been officially opened only four days earlier crossed the Missouri River with a picnic lunch in tow. Hiking to the highest spot on the landscape, later called Capitol Hill (and two blocks west of present Trinity Cathedral), they began to unpack their lunch provisions. Before the small group could really begin celebrating however, a number of local Indians approached, scaring the group and terminating the celebration. Nonetheless a roofless log cabin was erected that day on land adjoining Capitol Hill, and the land speculation that eventually built Omaha was underway. In the preceding month, the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company had mapped lots on 320 blocks for future sale in Omaha City, Nebraska Territory, all legally done according to provisions of the Townsite Act of A week after the failed picnic, the ferry company built a log cabin at Twelfth and Jackson streets that served as both the hotel and the Claim House, where land sales were recorded until the federal survey was completed. Late in the summer with a map lithographed in St. Louis in-hand, potential Omaha residents began to purchase the lots for $25 each, registering claims to their newly acquired properties in the Claim House. In part because, in 1853, the Omaha area was one of five locales identified as the possible eastern terminus of a transcontinental railroad, over the next three years, land speculation would drive prices on some lots as high as $800; many were purchased, sold, and the claims registered multiple times. The land frenzy stimulated commercial activity. By September 1854, a newspaper called the Arrow was in print, two stores were completed and open, and a saw mill, a flour mill, and a hotel were under construction. The same scenario was repeated at multiple sites up and down the west bank of the Missouri River in Nebraska Territory over the following months. Towns along the river were quickly platted and settled by residents with multiple commercial and cultural interests, but despite the arrival of most mainline religious denominations during the first two years of territorial development, the Episcopal

2 Church had no presence in the region. However in early 1856, an Omaha resident wrote to Dr. 2 Benjamin I. Haight, editor of the missionary journal of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Spirit of Missions, puzzled as to why no clergyman had come into the territory, noting that Other Churches have sent Missionaries here. The Church responded quickly, and on Saturday April 12, 1856, Rev. Edward Peet of Des Moines, arrived in Council Bluffs, where he read services and preached in the Methodist Church building the next morning. During the following week, he crossed the river to meet members of a new Episcopal congregation in Omaha. On Thursday, April 17, he organized St. Paul s Episcopal Church in Council Bluffs, and on Saturday, April 19, he organized a church in Omaha. Rev. Peet and seven or eight other citizens, met in the offices of lawyer Jonas Sheeley, Esq., for the purpose of organizing Trinity Parish. The following day, Rev. Peet preached and held services in the Nebraska Territorial Capitol Building. These well attended services were the first Episcopal rites in Omaha City. Over the next several months, services were held weekly, although clergy officiated only when they visited in the city. In mid-summer 1856, Missionary Bishop Jackson Kemper, Iowa Bishop Henry Lee, and Rev. William N. Irish of St. Joseph, Missouri, traveled through the area. Reporting from Omaha City, Kemper expressed the need for an immediate missionary effort saying, Tents are seen in every direction.... Already, in some respects, we are too late in the field. Missionaries should be in the Territory,... Although it was an organized parish, Trinity Episcopal Church possessed no building in which to hold services a fundamental issue that confronted every Episcopal Church in America after the Constitution was framed, since neither the national church nor young, fledgling congregations had the necessary funds to purchase building supplies. Neither were any ordained clergymen present in Omaha, a fact that evidences the importance of laymen licensed to read Morning and Evening Prayer.

3 When locals knew that clergy would be in town to preach, advance notice was written in the 3 newspapers, as was the case with the July 1856 visit of Bishops Kemper and Lee. But funds to pay a rector s salary also had to be raised from the local population. Thus, by late fall 1856, when it was apparent that the church in Omaha needed its own clergyman, Rev. George W. Watson from Bellevue, Iowa, was called to serve as Missionary to Council Bluffs, from which he also served Trinity. He initiated his ministry here on December 1, 1856, preaching Sunday mornings in Omaha, and Sunday evenings at St. Paul s in Council Bluffs. He remained attached to the Diocese of Iowa, residing in Council Bluffs, through all three years of his ministry here. In Spring 1856, when James Mills Woolworth solicited pledges to pay the Trinity portion of Rev. Watson s salary, Woolworth raised the needed subscriptions in less than two hours. Educated at Hobart College and General Theological Seminary, Rev. Watson was described as a modest man, and an excellent preacher. During his tenure in Omaha, several buildings were used for services. Rev. Watson s first service was held in Representatives Hall, a meeting room adjoining a billiard parlor located in the Pioneer Block between Tenth and Eleventh streets on the north side of Farnham. Woolworth described the first service, noting that attendants were entertained by the sound of the balls as well as the voice of the preacher. Before the first church building was finished sometime in 1859, a room in a building on the north side of Harney Street, as well as a small wood structure on the west side of Thirteenth Street were also used to hold services. However, in his report to the Diocese of Iowa in May 1857, Rev. Watson reported that the Trinity congregation had purchased a lot and obtained pledges of $1,700 toward the construction of their own permanent building. Funds from the construction pledges had been used to purchase a lot near Fourteenth and Davenport streets for construction of Trinity s first structure. The lot was selected because it lay

4 along two important roads through the fledgling city: the Omaha and Council Bluffs Road that 4 carried users to or from the ferry across the Missouri River, and the Road from Omaha City to Florence, thereby increasing the church s accessibility. The building s cornerstone was laid on August 2, 1857, but little more than a month later, the Panic of 1857 swept through the area, eliminating ten of the thirteen banks in the region and reducing the value of lots in the city to near zero. In fact, an estimated one million lots in villages along the Missouri River were abandoned. In the aftermath of the economic crash, the congregation s building plans were scrapped. But Omaha s economy began to recover in the spring of 1859, after the discovery of gold the previous summer at Cherry Creek, Colorado, and the town again bustled, this time with argonauts purchases of overland trail supplies. But for two years after the first failed attempt to establish a parish in their own building, Trinity services were held in a variety of buildings and homes across Omaha. Early Trinity parishioner James Van Nostrand left a valuable description of the services held in one of those early, temporary structures. In August 1857, he had assisted the congregation in preparations for the first confirmation service in Omaha, at which Rt. Rev. Henry Lee, Bishop of Iowa, presided. It was held in rooms in the Pioneer Block. Early on a lovely Sunday morning in August of 1857 you might have seen [Messrs. Hamilton, Clark, VanNostrand] hurrying... to put on... finishing touches [for the bishop s visit]..., then making the usual attack upon the two-inch planks from Hon. W.S. Gwyer s lumber yard for seats....the ladies on Saturday afternoon had given the rooms a good cleaning. A dry goods box, covered with a fair linen cloth, was an improvised altar; a bench, covered with a blanket, was to do duty as an altar rail; a silver cup to be used in place of a flagon; and the lower part of a silver butter dish answered in place of the patten. This same butter dish was used for baptismal purposes until we occupied the little church on lower Farnam street.... A melodeon was borrowed; our volunteer choir was in its place and soon the room was crowded. The candidate for confirmation was Mary Salisbury, a recent emigrant from New York. Following the successful bishop s visitation, $150 for the first building fund came to Van Nostrand from St. Ann s and Holy Trinity churches in Brooklyn, New York.

5 In mid-1859, still under the leadership of Rev. Watson, the first Trinity structure was 5 completed, but only with the assistance of Jesse Lowe, Omaha s first mayor. Lowe was active in real estate, and he owned two lots at Ninth and Farnham streets, until then the governmental center of Nebraska Territory s capital. He leased the lots to the church for ten years, provided the necessary brick for construction, and offered the labor to paint, finish, and maintain the interior of Trinity s first building. The legal documents stressed that the structure and all its improvements would revert to Lowe s ownership at the end of the decade of occupation. Bishop Lee donated $500 and other parishioners provided needed elements such as lights and carpet. In 1866 after seven years of use, it was described thusly: There are several lots attached to the Church property. The building is erected in the center of the lot. The grounds around the building are planted with shade and other trees, which adds greatly to the beauty and value of the church property.... Vestry have now under consideration the necessity for either enlarging the present building, or erecting a new one. The church has a very fine organ. Rev. Watson remained as rector of Trinity parish until after the establishment of the Missionary District of the Northwest, and the arrival of the first Missionary Bishop, Rt. Rev. Joseph Cruickshank Talbot, in April The bishop thought highly of Rev. Watson, noting that his zealous and noble labors... had been greatly blessed. Rev. Watson left Omaha shortly after Bishop Talbot arrived, saying he felt it was important for a bishop to choose his own clergymen. Bishop Talbot was very sorry to see him leave, as was James Mills Woolworth, who believed that under Rev. Watson s ministrations, Trinity had been the leading and most attractive of all the denominations in Omaha. Woolworth added that Rev. Watson later told him that he had made a great mistake in leaving. Omahans, said Woolworth, cherished the pleasantest recollections of Rev. Watson.

6 After Rev. Watson left Omaha, Trinity was led by three fine clergymen until the arrival of Rev. George C. Betts in But life on the Great Plains, even in a city such as Omaha, was primitive and arduous, and all three men left for a variety of reasons. During that period, the little 26 by 50 foot structure continued in use. In 1867, a new building was constructed at the cathedral s present location. True to Lowe s original lease, for twenty-five years after the Trinity congregation left their first home at Ninth and Farnham streets, the small structure served multiple other businesses, among them a natatorium, and a beer garden notable for its crawfish lunches and the music of Thiele s orchestra. In the summer of 1892, the old structure was demolished. The Rev. Canon William T. Whitmarsh made one last survey of the property during its destruction, noting that it had been a neat brick building, small but well proportioned, lancet windows, a triple lancet in the east, high pitched roof, and the front not devoid of ornament. Prowling the lot on which it stood, he found: the barn door that has taken the place of the old entrance... The chancel had been leveled, a door had been cut in the east wall, and singularly where the altar once stood was now a horse s feed box. The ceiling was arched, and on the walls the paper still clung.... It well bore upon every inch unmistakable evidences that it had been a house of God. The 1867 building, designed by Rt. Rev. William Robinson Whittingham, Bishop of Maryland, was the first Trinity structure built on the present site one-and-one-half lots in block 85 at the corner of Eighteenth and Capitol; the lots were purchased on August 9, 1866, for $4,000. Its sanctuary was 12 by 15 feet, the choir was 14 by 24 feet. Cost of the structure was $15,000, necessitating a large mortgage. In August 1867, as the building neared its completion, the women organized a grand vocal and musical concert in the Court House... for the benefit of the Church.... Several magnificent tableaux vivant will give the entertainment a delightful spice of variety. The event was seen as very successful, with total receipts placed at $725. The profits cannot fall short of $630. After it was completed, the 1868 Omaha City Directory described the first cathedral building as cruciform in shape and gothic in style, built of wood, beautifully finished within and furnished in excellent taste, and will accommodate 400 persons. The church is possessed of a fine organ of superior tone and

7 7 compass. But the congregation used it for only two years, because tragically, on November 10, 1869, the new building burned. The insurance moneys were used to pay off the mortgage, and a small frame wood structure was constructed on the lots after the rubble was cleared away. Intended for use only temporarily, the building served the congregation for over a decade, during which time it was enlarged twice. This small, rude, frame structure that became Trinity s cathedral building. The influences that shifted Trinity Parish to Trinity Cathedral are undoubtedly many. But possibly highest among them were the friendships between layman James Mills Woolworth and the first missionary bishops in Nebraska Territory. Woolworth and his first wife Maria Beggs Woolworth had emigrated to Omaha from Syracuse, New York in A lawyer by profession, Woolworth had already practiced law in New York for two years before coming to the territory. His reputation grew so quickly that when future United States President Chester A. Arthur arrived in Omaha to set up his own law practice in 1857, he concluded that Woolworth and Andrew Poppleton had effectively established a monopoly on the territory s legal needs. Thus, the future President moved on. Although he was reared as a Presbyterian in Cortland, New York, Woolworth s friendship with high churchman Rev. Henry Gregory, rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Syracuse, led the young lawyer to enter the Episcopal Church. Woolworth s law practice frequently took him into southeast Nebraska Territory where Bishop Joseph C. Talbot had established his headquarters at Nebraska City. The two men became fast friends, and that bond was extended to Bishop Clarkson when he began his residence at Nebraska City in In March 1868, the Trinity vestry asked Bishop Clarkson to consider Trinity as his home church, and the Clarksons moved north to Omaha. By the time of the first annual council of the Diocese of Nebraska in September 1868, Woolworth was serving as diocesan treasurer. He was later named diocesan Chancellor, legal advisor to- and appointed by- a diocesan bishop. By 1878, Cathedral

8 8 Dean Frank Millspaugh, Bishop Clarkson, and the entire congregation were more than ready for a new and more stately cathedral building. However, cathedrals were still too high for many Episcopalians to tolerate, so Bishop Clarkson asked Woolworth to author a book on the topic. Woolworth s research became The Cathedral in the American Church, published in 1883, which Bishop Clarkson used to sell to Nebraska laity his plan to construct a cathedral building. Additionally, the bishop hoped that the book s circulation would encourage other dioceses to consider the virtues of a cathedral building and the establishment of diocesan cathedral government. Woolworth was named chair of the building committee, and although Dean Millspaugh solicited designs from four Eastern architects one of which was originally selected by the committee, at the last minute, Woolworth submitted plans by the architect for the recently completed Cathedral of the Incarnation on Long Island. The Diocese of Long Island was headed by Rt. Rev. Abram Newkirk Littlejohn, a good friend of both Woolworth and the Nebraska bishop. Additionally, Bishop Littlejohn s sister lived in o\omaha, and Woolworth s grandfather, Rev. Aaron Woolworth, was a Presbyterian minister on Long Island. The new plans were approved by the committee. During the cathedral s construction, which was slow because the work was undertaken only as funds were available, the Trinity congregation first met in the Masonic temple after the old frame building was moved off-site to become St. Philip s Chapel. By Spring 1882, the church basement was completed, and Trinity women raised $1,000 to furnish a chapel framed within the foundation walls, referring to it as the Lady Chapel. The chapel, which opened on May 14, 1882, contained an altar and reredos donated by Elizabeth Woolworth. Obviously when the cathedral was opened in November 1883, the chapel was not used as much. Thus when All Saints was established in 1887, furnishings from the Lady Chapel, including the Woolworth altar and a font that had memorized a different family, were used in the new All Saints building.

9 By May 1882, the building fund was exhausted, and cathedral leadership asked: 9 Shall the Committee borrow money and finish the building, and leave those who are to come after and enjoy its privileges, to share in the expense of its erection? or shall the building stand as it is until funds can be procured by subscription to finish it without debt? Writer of the article went on to chastise Omahans and Trinityites for not donating adequately to the project. He said the congregation has been blessed [to raise] such a structure, and that should be reason enough to open the flood-gates of generous giving, from one and all. At that time, Bishop Clarkson believed $7,000 more was needed to ready the building to a point at which the windows could be installed. And not all of the needed stained glass windows had yet been subscribed. Nor were there enough funds to complete the tower, which the writer acknowledged, could be finished later. The cathedral building required three large stained glass windows, nine apse windows, and twenty-four other stained glass windows a total of sixty stained glass creations. All of the windows had been donated and all but two had been installed by the time the cathedral opened in November By July 1880, the bishops to be memorialized in the three great transept windows were known, and the windows honoring Christ and the twelve Apostles in the apse had been designed. The clerestory needed twenty-eight windows, and Bishop Clarkson wanted each of them to honor one of the small churches in the diocese that had achieved parish status by Other furnishings in Trinity Cathedral memorialized Omahans who worked to establish the city, as well as friends and family of the Clarksons, who by 1883 stretched from the bishop s native Pennsylvania, to Maryland where he undertook his first clergy work and married Meliora McPherson. Many additional relationships were forged in Chicago where, as rector of St. James, he became acquainted with the city s most influential residents as that city s near north side grew. The cathedral, which opened on November 15, 1883, marked a turning point in Omaha and diocesan history. Omaha was in the midst of a building boom resulting from the completion of the

10 10 Union Pacific Railroad a decade earlier. From the few picnickers in July 1854, the city had grown to over 30,000 people by The first permanent site selected by Trinityites had been chosen because it lay along important access roads to the primary route into the West the Great Platte River Road, which lay to the north of central Omaha. By 1883, those trails had virtually disappeared from the urban landscape, and the city s commercial activity had shifted southward when the route for the transcontinental railroad was mapped in And just as the 1859 building had been nestled into the former, but still important, territorial government sector of Omaha, the new and present site on block 85 of the City of Omaha lay only two city blocks from the new territorial capitol building completed in But remarkably and sadly, the opening of the cathedral came just a few months prior to the end of Bishop Clarkson s earthly work. He died unexpectedly in March His successor, Rt. Rev. George Worthington, altered the course of diocesan administration and mission. Therefore over 130 years later, the cathedral building and its furnishings remain as an important and tangible narrative of the early history of the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska; its clerestory windows not only define the breadth of its boundaries in 1883, but demonstrate Bishop Clarkson s commitment to mission. Over the next months, a series of short essays will narrate the history of the parishes represented in the cathedral s clerestory through ca Jo L. Wetherilt Behrens, All Rights Reserved

In Christ Now Meet Both East and West : A History of the Diocese of Nebraska

In Christ Now Meet Both East and West : A History of the Diocese of Nebraska In early September 1868, eastern Nebraska Episcopalians some ordained clergy, some laymen were preparing to make the long journey