Trinity Episcopal Church, located in the Lime Rock neighborhood of Lakeville, Connecticut, was spun off from a church in nearby Salisbury village back in 1874. Lime Rock in those days was a factory town where railroad car wheels were manufactured. Actually, Trinity exists because the man who owned the factory, who would become a United State Senator and the longest-serving to date chair of the National Democratic Committee, who wasn't particularly religious himself, had a wife who was. But both felt a church would be good for their workers. The church prospered with the industry, but eventually the industry died -- but the church somehow hung on. In the darkest days of World War II a part-time priest began the turnaround process.
Lime Rock -- and the Northwest Corner of Connecticut -- changed.
Around 1950 the first parish history was written, and, brief as it was, it was a great effort to pull together even back then. However praiseworthy the first effort was, It left a bit to be desired, particularly in the way of context.
This volume offers the historical context -- religious, business, cultural, economic, and political -- in hopes that Trinity can be understood today as something beyond the product of a series of clergy, wardens, financial near-misses, and building projects. There is a generous amount of previously unknown history of the iron industry in northwest Connecticut here, as well as some vignettes from the cultural shifts that came with immigration. There are social movements, notably prohibition and women's rights. There is a whole new sport -- sports car racing -- and local opposition to it.
Meanwhile, we will see the transition of the Episcopal Church from being the church of the aristocracy to becoming a church of the people. There are a lot of moving parts indeed!
