Priscilla

Priscilla Hooper is the Chaplain's assistant.  She kindly lit the Trinity College chapel for me and showed me around.

Chancel

The pews and kneelers in the nave of the Trinity College Chapel do not have all of the carvings. These are some of the carvings in the chancel.  The animals in the circles form a "bestiary."

You thought we were done here, didn't you?

A Brace of Finials? A Gaggle of Finials? A Pride of Finials?

 I will show some more carvings from the Trinity College Chapel, without trying to explain each.  Amazing, aren't they?

Cool, no?

Mather Pew End

The pew end topped with this finial was given to Trinity College by the Church Club of Cleveland at the time of its 60th anniversary, to honor William Mather.  He was a Trinity graduate, a leading citizen of Cleveland and a founder of the club.  The carving shows Mather reading from one of the many volumes filled with the writings of his Mather forebearers.  (They were biggies in the Puritan times . . . you can check out Richard Mather, Increase Mather and Cotton Mather.)

Mather once said that his ancestors were the kind of people who, on arriving in this country, "fell upon their knees and then upon the aborigines."  I wish I came up with that line . . .

Hartford Fire Department

This is an interesting one.  The finial for the pew honoring the Hartford Fire Department shows Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in a fiery furnace.  I wonder how many people make the connection between a biblical fire and the local firefighters!

Some of you have asked if this is a U.S. tradition.  I have never seen another chapel with anything like this.  So far as I know -- and I am not an ecclesiastical expert -- it is unique.

Gardeners Pew End

This is a Taylor/Dressel carving of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch from Hartford's Bushnell Park.

Good news yesterday about the derelict Capitol West office building I showed you last week.  A demolition contractor has been hired and demolition will begin in two weeks.  It is expected to take about four months to take it down.  The story is here.

Hunter's Pew End

The Hunter's pew end features a buffalo.

Trinity College occupies an attractive but inward-looking campus south of downtown Hartford, ringed by low income neighborhoods.  "Town and gown" issues plague many privileged educational institutions in poorer cities, and Trinity is no exception.  Two weeks ago a carful of local men beat a Trinity student badly in the early hours of morning.  That has reignited a dialog between those who urge more campus security at the cost of even greater separation of the campus from the neighborhood, and those who think that Trinity should not and cannot fence off the outside world.

But, at this troubled time for Trinity, I am just going to show you carvings . . .