Trinity Church, Newport, Rhode Island

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Trinity Church, Newport, Rhode Island is the oldest Episcopal parish in Rhode Island. The Newport, Rhode Island congregation began to gather about 1698. When Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont was investigating charges of the infractions of the Navigation Acts in Rhode Island, he requested that the Board of Trade send a minster from England to Rhode Island. The first church was built in 1700. The present church built in 1725-26, was designed by local builder Richard Munday, who based his designs on those that he had seen that Sir Christopher Wren had used in London churches in the late 17th century. Trinity, however, was built entirely of wood. It is believed to be the only church building with its three-tiered wineglass pulpit reamaining in its original position in the center of the aisle, in front of the altar. The building was enlarged in 1764, but otherwise retains its original character with box pews.

In 1731, Dean George Berkeley donated the first organ, whose wooden case, decorated with the crown of England the the mitres of the archbishops of Canterbury and York, survives in place. The first organist was Karl or Charles Pachelbel, a son of the famous German baroque composer Johann Pachelbel.

The church was used as a garrison church by the British Army in 1776-1778. Local oral tradition reports that George Washington attended services there in 1781. The French Admiral, the Chevalier de Ternay who died in December 1780, is buried in the churchyard.