Apalachicola, Florida

January 20, 2023

Readings for January 22, 2023, the Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Readings for January 29, 2023, the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Does this type of fellowship sound interesting to you? 



Please sign up in Benedict Hall

or email KK at karen_kessel@yahoo.com.

Registration ends on Sunday, January 29. Once the registration closes, each participant will be assigned a Trinity Table Times

group. Afterwards, you will receive an invitation to join one of the groups! 

Want to know more about TTT? 

Ask Dee Crusoe, Karen Kessel or Carrie Kienzle when you see them!

After seeing the news of the horrific tornado damage in Selma Alabama on January 12, 2023, several people asked how they could help. Rennie Edwards and Patti McCartney grew up in Selma and our rector prior to Martha was The Rev. Joe Knight of Selma.

If you would like to help those in need in Selma, checks can be made out to “Trinity”, marked “tornado relief”. 

There will also be a donation jar in Benedict Hall for two weeks. All of the funds collected will be sent to the disaster relief fund at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Selma, home parish for both Patti and Rennie. 

Over 100 homes were severely damaged or destroyed and much of the population lives below poverty and are unlikely to have home insurance.

Help will be appreciated

and used wisely. 

-- Patti & Rennie

Friends of Trinity,

The search committee assigned to secure a new priest for Trinity met this past Sunday with the Rev. Ashley Freeman, Canon to the Ordinary. Rev. Freeman is assigned to assist with the search committee in identifying our strengths, areas of concern, and "what Trinity is seeking in a new priest".

From his perspective, we are ready to proceed with the search. He has reviewed our collective efforts in "what we think we want and what we think we need; and, what we hope and pray we will find". 

We asked, nea, implored him to cast our materials across a very, very wide geographical area and he assured us that is what he intends to do. He stated that our Parish Profile is key to a successful search and he stated that our materials were, indeed, compelling and very good.

Trinity's compensation package is fine. Trinity's congregation is ready for the next step. Trinity is now searching and may God watch over us and guide us as well as those candidates who are seeking a parish to call home.

-- Ralph Wagoner for the Search Committee

For the Record:  The Oldest Pipe Organ in Florida (and the Only Existing Erben)

Apalachicola was a small southern port town with big city pretensions from its beginning. This was especially true for its first (and only) Episcopal congregation, organized in 1835, incorporated by the Florida Territorial Legislative Council in 1837, constructed in Greek-revival style from cut-to-measure white pine disassembled and shipped from New York, and consecrated “Trinity Church” on Sexagesima Sunday, 1841. Trinity also ordered and installed an organ. Robert Delvin, Music and Fine Arts Librarian of Illinois Wesleyan University, cites a Trinity advertisement for a “Christmas Oratorio” by Baron LeFleur, “a finished performer on the organ and piano-forte, with admission of one dollar for the church” (The Gazette, December 1840) and testimony from The Churchman (March 1841) that Trinity’s “tolling bell and organ-choir make blessed music for its citizens.”

Henry Erben of New York City was the leading American pipe organ builder in the mid-nineteenth century. The state of Florida boasted nine Erben organs, many churches having installed two organs due to hurricanes, fires, the humid climate or because they outgrew earlier models. St. John’s in Tallahassee purchased an Erben in 1836. Trinity vestryman, George Field, attended the diocesan convention at St. John’s in 1840, and certainly heard the Erben. St. Paul’s in St. Augustine installed an Erben in 1836 and another in 1951; St. Paul’s in Pensacola purchased two, the first in 1844 and a second in 1849. The evidence from Apalachicola supports an 1840 organ, and from Trinity’s parish records, we know a “new” Erben organ was purchased for $564 in 1859. Rev. Saunders reported that Trinity was hit by two large gales in 1852 and 1853, the second of which damaged much of the interior. By the year 2000, Delvin reports, Trinity’s 1859 Opus no. 3 organ was the only remaining Erben in Florida.

Trinity’s original floor plan was fashioned after a New England meeting house with two side aisles. Its construction was partially financed by pew rentals, and the layout included inwardly facing boxed pews abutting a centered pulpit. A schematic of the boxes, and the parishoners who initially rented them, is located on the east wall at the back of the nave today. The organ and choir would have been situated in the gallery supported by four Ionic columns, accessed by exterior doors, and up nicely appointed staircases. Delvin examined Trinity’s gallery in 1999 and concluded that it was constructed with a platform that neatly fitted Erben’s stock organs. An organ and choir gallery facing the Chancel was in the English and early to mid-nineteenth century American style. 

Trinity remodeled the chancel in 1868 and removed the pew boxes facing the central pulpit. A semi-circular altar rail was installed, and the 1859 Erben was moved to the church floor. Stenciling was added to the ceiling and script above the chancel and at the top of the gallery, as pictured in 1892 (see article, linked below). In 1921, parish records describe a major expansion of the chancel with three Tiffany-styled stained-glass windows, a wall-to-wall altar rail, a divided choir, an offset pulpit, and reconfigured pews with a central aisle. At this time, a more modern Pilcher organ was donated to replace the Erben, which was again consigned to the gallery. It sat mute for nearly 50 years. In 1975, the Erben was restored and moved to the floor on the left side of the chancel across from the Pilcher. A second-hand Ruhland was purchased in 2000 to replace the Pilcher, and it was made serviceable for over a decade.  The 1859 Erben replaced the Ruhland for regular use in 2016, and proudly serves the congregation today. It is the oldest pipe organ in Florida.

March 9, 2000 the Apalachicola Historical Society hosted a lecture by Robert C, Delvin entitled “A Tale of Two Organs: Henry Erben and Apalachicola, Florida.” The lecture was published in an expanded form for an article, “Erben Organs of Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalachicola, Florida," in The Tracker, Journal of the Organ Historical Society, Volume 43, Number 3, 1999, 18-27. This summary for the record is based on that article.

The Trinity cookie ministry has had a very busy year. We provide 10 dozen cookies or sweet treats every Thursday (and additional days if we have extra people) to the meal program at Holy Family. We have received very positive feedback from ECCC about how much these treats are appreciated, as their funding is stretched just providing meals. 

We invite others to get involved. It can be a regular or a one-time commitment. We try to pair people so each bake five dozen but it certainly is doable to do the 10 dozen. I bake cookies when I have some free time and pop them in the freezer. It only takes a few minutes to drop them off at Holy Family. The cookies can be very simple -- I am definitely not a baker so mine are often brownies. Some bakers do lovely holiday cookies. We all have different gifts.

-- Connie Finneran

We would love to expand our ministry for more days.

If you would like to be involved, please contact Connie Finneran at sailboatgal@yahoo.com.

Jon Johnson (left), local wildlife rescuer and photographer, holding a captured owl that Dot Hill (right) found injured in her yard recently. Also admiring the owl are Dot's daughter, Suzanne Besore, and her grandchild.

-- Photo by Susan Farmer

Help ECCC Fill New Year's Baskets

ECCC is preparing New Year's Baskets for the 6th year in a row. This year, we are planning to fill 125 laundry baskets with supplies that food stamps won't purchase. Now is the perfect time to get involved with a donation from the list below, or by sending us a check (ECCC, PO Box 335, Eastpoint, FL 32328) or using your credit card here: PayPal.me/ecccfranklin. Specify "New Year's Baskets" so your donation will go to help fill the baskets. Each basket is valued at about $40 and every donation counts! 

Items for the baskets:

• laundry soap and bar soap
• dishwashing soap, dish cloths & dish towels
• tissues & paper towels
• toilet paper, toilet cleaner & toilet brush
• all purpose cleaner & cleaning cloths

Please bring your items to Holy Family Senior Center Monday through Friday, 9 am - 1 pm. The deadline is January 27. We will be packing and distributing the baskets the first Saturday in February.

January 22, 2023

Lay Worship Leader - Brooks Jones

Greeters - Bill and Patti McCartney

Lectors - Candace Springer, Steve Watkins

Prayers of the People - Ralph Wagoner

Acolyte - Rick Watson

Lay Eucharistic Minister - Gloria Austin

Altar Guild - Candace Springer

Flower Guild - Penny Marler

January 29, 2023

Celebrant - The Rev. Martha Harris

Greeters - Tom Edwards, Ralph Wagoner

Lectors - Susan Galloway, Rennie Edwards

Prayers of the People - Patti McCartney

Acolyte - Rick Watson

Lay Eucharistic Minister - Kirk Hadaway

Altar Guild - Candace Springer

Flower Guild - Joy Tracy, Dee Crusoe

Your Bay View: Trinity's bi-weekly e-newsletter, the Bay View, reaches members and friends every other Friday, sharing news and inspiration for and about our parish. Please send information and announcements, as well as photographs, to info@trinityapalachicola.org or call the church office at 850-653-9550. The deadline for submission is noon on Wednesday of each publication week. (The next deadline is February 1, 2023)

-- Kay Carson, Editor

Worship Service at 10:30 am Sunday, Eastern time

Church address: 79 6th Street, Apalachicola, Florida 32320

Office address: 76 5th Street, Apalachicola, Florida 32320

Mailing address: PO Box 667, Apalachicola, Florida 32329

Phone number: (850) 653-9550

Email: info@trinityapalachicola.org