A History of Trinity Episcopal Church
Standing today on the grounds of Trinity Episcopal Church in Elkridge, Maryland, surrounded by commercial industry, warehouses, housing communities, and the ever-present sound of vehicles zooming up and down Route 1, it is difficult to imagine how quiet and pastoral the location once was. Elkridge, which lays claim to being Howard County’s oldest settlement, had once been a bustling town supported by the tobacco and iron industries. Early in the nineteenth century, trades once centered in Elkridge began to migrate toward Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and wheat, hay, and corn replaced tobacco as dominant crops. Elkridge became a rural, agricultural community once again. By the mid-1850s, Route 1 (then called the Washington and Baltimore Turnpike) was a few decades old and used primarily for the transport of goods within the mid-Atlantic region. Farms and undeveloped land stretched as far as the eye could see. 
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the only church in the part of Elkridge nearest the Turnpike was a small Methodist chapel where services were held twice a month; there was a stretch of nine miles between Grace Episcopal Church and Christ Episcopal Church in Guilford (now Columbia). This was a formidable distance along farmland and country roads, an hour’s trip by horse and buggy and much longer for the many rural Marylanders whose only means of transportation was walking.
In 1856 Dr. Lennox Birckhead, a prominent Catonsville physician who moved to Elkridge sometime after 1837, donated property for a “chapel of ease,” or subsidiary, of Christ Episcopal Church to be built near his home. Dr. Birckhead, a widower and veteran of the War of 1812, had married his second wife Adaminna Faber in 1840. By all accounts, Adaminna Birckhead was a force of nature, headstrong and persuasive. She adopted her husband’s Episcopal affiliation and would play a consequential role in Trinity’s establishment.
Within a year of the land donation Trinity Chapel was consecrated, largely due to Mrs. Birckhead’s perseverance. Danish by birth and a Christian missionary at heart, she was deeply dedicated to the establishment of a church that would serve her local Elkridge community. She became an intrepid fundraiser, spending her days traveling throughout the Elkridge area while her husband was working in Baltimore as a physician. Within months she had solicited enough funding to begin construction. When Trinity Chapel opened for services in March 1857, the Bishop of Maryland credited the Birckhead family, and Mrs. Birckhead in particular, for Trinity’s existence. Well into her later years, she was often observed walking across Trinity grounds, black lace gloves and tiny parasol in hand.
With construction on the plain-board chapel building complete, a deep ravine adjacent to the chapel had to be filled, requiring 345 loads of dirt, a project personally overseen by Dr. Birckhead. Soon landscaping and driveways surrounded Trinity Chapel and a white oak tree nearby, believed to be about a hundred years old at that time. By 1858 a small, two-story Sunday School building had been added, and two years later a small graveyard about a half mile away was deeded to the church. About the same time an additional five acres of adjacent property were purchased to add to the original acre and a half, with the intent of adding a rectory to the property. That rectory was completed in 1866.
Trinity’s first rector was the Rev. Alexander Berger, who also served Christ Church. He presided over Trinity’s first wedding, in 1864, between Amelia Mollmann and John Pfeiffer. In 1866 Trinity Chapel was renamed Trinity Church and became an independent congregation under the rectorship of Theodore Gambrill, a math-professor-turned-clergyman and son-in-law of the Birckheads. During Rev. Gambrill’s tenure, a bell tower and sacristy were added to the church.
Remarkably, Trinity Church never suffered a fire, and many of its original architectural details are preserved. A good example is still visible today at Trinity’s altar. Rev. Gambrill’s successor, the Rev. William F. Gardner, was new to the clergy. He embedded his first dollar earned as a minister (about $2400 today) into Trinity’s communion rail and dedicated it in memory of John H. Rowland, his wife’s brother.
According to recollections of Edith Curtis, a longtime parishioner who began attending Trinity as a child in the 1890s, the chairs used by clergy at the altar came from the Rowland home. One of these altar chairs was restored in 2025 (Phase 1 and Phase 2); methods of its construction, and materials used in a previous repair, suggest that the chair was built in the mid-nineteenth century. It is likely that the chair has been sitting at Trinity’s altar since the early years of Rev. Gambrill’s rectorship.
The rectory was significantly damaged by fire in 1872. Fortunately, the house had been insured, and it was quickly rebuilt. While repairs were being made, the rector and his family lived in the Sunday School house.
In 1890 the church underwent significant renovations, expanding both its footprint and architectural character. The original simple building was augmented into a shingled, Gothic revival style common in the late nineteenth century. A stone extension was added to the church, and the entrance was moved to face north. The church was reoriented so that the altar faced east, in the Anglican tradition. A chancel was added and the church’s capacity was increased. Cedar shingles were added to the exterior. Notably, the stained-glass windows underwent a significant transformation. Three new memorial windows were installed in the front of the church. The original stained-glass window, a pictorial depiction of the Trinity, is now in the back of the church. The Trinity window resides today in an interior wall and is backlit during Trinity services.
A parish hall was built in 1910, and the old Sunday School building was torn down. Sunday School classes were held in the parish hall for the next several decades, with portable partitions dividing classrooms on Sunday mornings. The parish hall was also home to many community events of the day, including dances, plays, and fundraising dinners.
There were two significant additions to the sanctuary in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1917, the brass pulpit was installed, a gift from St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Annapolis. The pipe organ followed in 1936, constructed at the iconic M. P. Moeller manufacturing facility in Hagerstown, MD.
Trinity was faced with severely constrained financial resources during and after World Wars I and II. Two of its longest serving rectors had to balance their clergy responsibilities with other sources of income: Rev. Charles Fosbroke, rector from 1919-1938, ran a dairy farm, and the Rev. George Van Bibber Shriver, rector from 1945-1969, worked in the insurance industry. Despite financial constraints, Trinity’s commitment to religious education remained strong. In the 1950s the congregation even managed to procure a school bus for transporting local schoolchildren to Sunday School. 
By the early 1970s, Trinity was showing its age. There was serious discussion about tearing down the church and relocating the parish to Columbia, anticipating that a more residential location might lead to increased membership. This proposal was controversial and caused much division within the Trinity community. Ultimately the parish rejected this plan. With donations streaming in from across the country, the church was substantially renovated, culminating in Trinity’s 1974 placement on the National Register of Historic Places. A local architect, commenting on this distinction, marveled at Trinity’s architectural prowess, a diamond in the rough despite being surrounded by commerce and industry. Elkridge had come full circle from its original industrial roots, with Trinity Church standing as an enduring memorial to nineteenth-century architectural and Howard County history.
Structural improvements continued throughout the decade. Specially milled cedar shakes replaced the old ones. A new roof, flashing, gutters, and insulation were added. The stained-glass windows were repaired and covered with plexiglass for protection.
The renovations persisted through the 1980s. Plenty of God’s creatures had taken up residence in various parts of Trinity’s buildings and were causing considerable damage. Mice damaged the pipe organ; squirrels ran wild across the attic rafters. Minutes from a 1989 vestry meeting describe the necessary “eviction” of termites from the rectory.
In 1993, with the imminent arrival of a new rector, many renovations were made to the rectory. Several aging trees were removed, due to the danger posed to the surrounding areas. The cross was installed on Trinity grounds in 1994 and lighting added to it a year later. A large wing connecting the church to the parish hall was completed in 2003. Offices and classrooms occupy this space today.
Trinity Episcopal Church is the steward of two cemeteries. The acre of land donated by Theodore Tubman in 1860 still stands as a cemetery today; it is about a half mile from the church, now surrounded by industrial warehouses. Adaminna Birckhead, whose life spanned most of the nineteenth century, is buried there, as are many of Trinity’s early parishioners. (Lennox Birckhead died in 1865 and is buried in a family plot at the historic Old Saint Paul’s cemetery in Baltimore.)
The other cemetery lies about five miles from the church, at Pfeiffer Corner in modern-day Columbia. From the 1870s to the 1930s, Trinity operated a chapel there, with its own Sunday School building and small cemetery. The chapel is long gone, but the Sunday School building survives. For many years it was used as a thrift shop to support Trinity ministries.
(The chapel at Pfeiffer Corner was one of two that Trinity Church operated during the early twentieth century to serve its more distant neighbors. Additionally, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church was established as a small satellite parish in Jessup. Like the chapel at Pfeiffer Corner, it became impractical to maintain as more parishioners had cars and were therefore able to travel to church. In the 1930s, church activity was recentralized back at Trinity in Elkridge. The St. Mary’s chapel building no longer exists, but its parish hall still stands today as the Jessup Community Hall, at the intersection of Route 175 and Wigley Ave.)
Today, Trinity Episcopal Church remains deeply committed to its origins as a bastion of pastoral care, and honors the enduring tradition of ministering to the many walks of life on and near Route 1. The thrift shop is thriving; it is no longer located at Pfeiffer Corner but now occupies the main floor of the rectory. Proceeds from the Trinity Thrift Shop help sustain the church’s long commitment to providing meals for those in need, just as nineteenth- and twentieth-century forebearers did in serving those who traveled up and down the Turnpike.
The church edifice is in excellent condition, thanks to scores of Trinity volunteers who have maintained the church’s historic character for decades. Mother Nature and Father Time have certainly taken their toll: the Trinity oak became diseased and threatened to damage the church if it fell; the 2011 earthquake did significant damage to the portion of the building surrounding the altar. The tree was reluctantly taken down but replaced with a tree of the same species and planted in the same place. The part of the church damaged by the earthquake was meticulously rebuilt stone by stone and stands today much as it did over a hundred years ago.
Trinity Episcopal Church embraces its storied past, rural and industrial character, and meaningful contribution to Elkridge history, and invites each of those cars zooming up and down the Turnpike to stop by and enjoy the warmth and hospitality for which its clergy, staff, and parishioners are well known.
Source material for this article includes unpublished histories of Trinity Church in 1894 and 1982, Howard County Historical Society records, online genealogy research, church vestry meeting minutes, and privately-held church records preserved by the Maryland State Archives in the 2010s.
June 2026