The History of Trinity Cathedral

HISTORY  
Following the American Revolution, the Anglican Church's successor in South Carolina, the Episcopal Church, was in difficult straits. Clergy had fled with the British occupation forces, buildings had been destroyed, the church had been disestablished, and there were no congregations in the backcountry where a majority of the state's population resided. In order yo help the church expand into the backcountry, a group of low country Episcopalians formed the Protestant Episcopal Society for the Advancement of Christianity in South Carolina. Trinity was the first church this group helped establish.

In 1812 a group of Columbians incorporated themselves as the first Episcopal parish in the backcountry. With the support of the Protestant Episcopal Society, funds were raised for the construction of a small, wooden cruciform structure on the southeast corner of Gervais and Sumter streets. This church building was dedicated in 1814. The next twenty years saw this promising beginning falter. Membership declined, and the church was without a resident rector. In 1833 Peter Shand, a young lay reader from Charleston, came to Columbia. The following year he was ordained and began a fifty-two year rectorate at Trinity Church.

During Dr. Shand's years, the church prospered; and in 1845 a large congregation engaged the services of Edward Brickell White, a well-known architect, to design a new edifice. The present building (minus the transepts), modeled after York Cathedral in England, was consecrated in 1847. The congregation, in a superb display of confidence in itself and in the stability of the Confederacy undertook to build the transepts and extend the chancel in 1861-62. On February 17, 1865, the troops of General William Tecumseh Sherman entered the city. The next morning, one-third of Columbia was in ashes. The fires raged all around Trinity, but miraculously the church was spared.

From its beginnings as a country church of fewer than twenty-five communicants, Trinity has grown to an urban parish numbering more than 4200 baptized members (communicants). Throughout its history the parish has played a leading role in the affairs of the city, the state, and the church. Six of her rectors have become bishops, and she has numbered among her congregation congressmen, judges, legislators, and governors. In November 1976, the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, in convention  assembled, voted to make Trinity Church, Columbia, its cathedral parish. The necessary documents were proclaimed in January 1977, and a magnificent liturgical celebration commemorating this event was held in May 1977. 

INSIDE THE CHURCH 
Of special interest in the church are the baptismal font designed by the sculptor, Hiram Powers; the great Trinity or West Window over the main door; the original closed rental pews; the carrara marble altar; and the marble tablets in the sanctuary inscribed with the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten Commandments.

THE CHURCHYARD
Under the ancient oaks and magnolias of Trinity's Churchyard are buried some of South Carolina's most distinguished sons and daughters: General Wade Hampton, General Peter Horry, and Private Robert Stark (all Revolutionary heroes); Dr. Thomas Cooper, president of the South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) and friend of Thomas Jefferson; General Wade Hampton and numerous others who fought so gallantly for the Lost Cause; Henry Timrod, Poet Laureate of the Confederacy; six governors: Wade Hampton, Richard Irvine Manning, John Lawrence Manning, Richard Irvine Manning, Hugh Smith Thompson, and James F. Byrnes; and eight bishops of the Episcopal Church: Ellison Capers, Kirkman G. Finlay, Henry D. Phillips, C. Alfred Cole, Louis C. Melcher, John A. Pinckney, George M. Alexander, Gray Temple and William A. Beckham.