St. Paul’s Chapel

New York
NY
St. Paul’s Chapel

St. Paul’s in lower Manhattan

QUICK FACTS
  • St. Paul’s Chapel is part of the Parish of Trinity Church and is the oldest public building in continuous use in New York City.
  • During the Great New York Fire of 1776, it is saved by a bucket brigade that runs from the Hudson River up to the chapel’s roof.
  • Following his inauguration at Federal Hall (30-Apr-1789) President Washington attends Thanksgiving service, presided over by Bishop Provoost, at St. Paul’s. He would continue to attend services there until the second Trinity Church was finished in 1790.
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Completed in 1766, St. Paul’s Chapel is the only surviving colonial-era church in Manhattan. The Georgian Classic-Revival structure was used then, and now, as a satellite chapel for the Parish of Trinity Church. The architect is unknown, but as was the practice at the time, the design was taken from architectural pattern-books and the result resembles St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

Following Continental Army battles with the British in Fall 1776, a fire swept through lower Manhattan in September destroying some 500 buildings — including Trinity Church. St. Paul’s was saved with a bucket brigade. Throughout the British occupation of New York and after, until 1790, St. Paul’s became the primary church for the parish.

British Generals William Howe and Charles Cornwallis worshiped there. When he became president George Washington walked from Federal Hall, where he was inaugurated, to St. Paul’s to participate in a service with his wife Martha and both houses of Congress. Today, Washington’s pew is designated with the first U.S. Great Seal painted overhead.

In 1960, St. Paul’s was declared a National Historic Landmark for its architecture and its history.

The church and cemetery grounds are open to visitors daily; worship services are held every Sunday.

Eighteenth-century writers seemed uncertain how best to describe Britain’s relation to its many overseas possessions. Only tepidly did they employ the concept of empire since for them it carried uncomfortable baggage from ancient history. The traditional usage suggested that control over distant colonies and expansion into new regions depended on military might. But the notion that Great Britain was a modern-day Rome, dispatching powerful legions to conquer the world, did not sit well with a people who celebrated liberty and rights, the blessings of living under a balanced constitution.

— T. H. Breen
The Marketplace of the Revolution (2004)