Trinity Episcopal Church

Like many nineteenth-century entrepreneurs, Peter Herdic could be charitable as well as acquisitive. In a gesture of enlightened selfinterest, he gave congregations lots scattered among his vast acres of residential development. At Trinity Church, where he served on the vestry for fifteen years, he paid for everything. Thorn, a Pennsylvania Railroad architect who later joined the Philadelphia office of Wilson Brothers, designed this Early English Gothic–styled church. After Thorn's departure, Culver served as the superintending architect and, for the church's southwest corner, designed a square tower with a spire sympathetic to Thorn's scheme. The church and the tower were built of sandstone from Bald Eagle Mountain near Muncy and trimmed with Hummelstown brownstone. Culver's tower rises 85 feet to four gablets, each with a clock, then its hexagonal spire soars an additional 125 feet. The belfry houses a chime of nine bells cast at the Troy Bell Foundry. The church's interior has undergone some changes—the organ console, now in the northeast corner, was originally on the north side; the rood beam was installed in 1917; and the 1904 pulpit and 1919 canopy were moved to their present location in the 1920s. The wall colors, stained glass, ceiling, and floor tiles, however, remain unchanged from the 1870s. A gift from the Amanda E. Howard estate funded the parish hall and chapel (1915–1916) facing Trinity Place and attached to the church's northeast corner. The three-story brick parish office building (c. 1914) stands at the west end of the church; adjacent to those offices is the former rectory at 848 W. 4th Street.