But the Small Congregation ‘Would Greatly Appreciate Contributions’ as It Works to Preserve and Elevate History
February 27, 2025
Staff Writer
SOUTHAMPTON—After contending with repetitive floods over the last quarter century, Trinity Episcopal Church in the Vincentown Village section of Southampton Township is getting a major lift – figuratively and literally, “to prevent future flooding of our buildings” in a project being dubbed by Church Warden Bob Smith, “Trinity Rising.”
Anyone who has recently passed by the church, located on Mil Street along the South Branch of the Rancocas Creek, has probably taken notice that the church has been temporarily raised some 8 feet in the air, now being held up by support cribbing.
It is all part of a project to raise the church’s elevation by about 4 feet, which commenced Jan. 6, being undertaken by both Audubon Helical Piers, of Shamong, and SJ Hauck Construction, of Absecon. The project is estimated to take about three months to complete.
According to Smith, Trinity Church was first flooded back on July 12-13, 2004.
That is when over 13 inches of rain fell in portions of Central Burlington County, causing an upstream dam on the Rancocas to fail, subsequently sending a wall of water downstream, including to Vincentown.
Smith said Trinity Church had over four feet of water inundation in the church at the time, and even more in its attached parish hall.
“It did catastrophic damage with floors and pews being twisted and warped,” Smith recounted. “Everything that was flooded in both the sanctuary and parish hall had to be replaced, including floors, pews, walls, kitchen cabinets, office furniture and papers, as well as vestments.”
Smith described that in the wake of the 2024 flood, “we were closed for almost a year and lost three-quarters of our membership.”
Meteorologists referred to the 2004 flood event as a 1,000-year storm. But since 2004, the Rancocas has flooded several more times, however, and in response to even less, but still excessive rainfall.
Then came the major flood of June 19 and 20, 2019, when training thunderstorms along a stalled frontal boundary had dropped over 5 inches of rain over a large part of the Rancocas Creek basin, with two to four inches reportedly occurring within a two-hour period, leading to major flash flooding.
National Weather Service records show that the Rancocas Creek in Vincentown went from a height of just under 2 feet to exceeding 9 feet over a little more than a 12-hour period, achieving major flood stage.
“The parish hall was flooded again in 2019 to a height of about 18 inches,” Smith observed. “The hall was closed for about four months, but services were continued.”
Following the 2019 storm, state officials had urged affected area property owners to consider taking advantage of its flood-buyout program, known as Blue Acres.
Several homes in the historic village, including along Mill Street, have been razed over the last several months, with some buyouts having now reportedly taken place. Once a property is purchased by the state through the program, it is turned over to the municipality for maintenance, but cannot be built on again.
But considering Trinity Church’s 154 years of rich history, preservation of the historic church was the only consideration for church elders, according to Smith.
Back in 1868, Episcopal services began in Vincentown, Smith enlightened, initially taking place in local homes and other buildings. But by 1871, according to Smith, construction had begun on a church building.
What would become known as Trinity Church was built on land from the locally-known Irick family, with the cornerstone laid on Sept. 27, 1871.
The church would go on to hold its first service on June 2, 1872, and therefore, as Smith pointed out, “the church is 154 years old.”
Smith also noted that on Nov. 18, 1891, Trinity Church was the setting for a notable wedding between Mary Stretch Irick, of Vincentown, and George W. Childs Drexel, of Philadelphia, with Childs-Drexel being the youngest son of financier Anthony J. Drexel, founder of Drexel University.
“In preparation for the event, the church underwent certain permanent alterations financed by Drexel, including an extension to the sanctuary to accommodate the guests,” Smith recalled.
In December 2023, the church had what Smith described to this reporter as a very close call once again with floodwaters, after a series of storms had soaked the area.
“In December 2023, the church buildings were completely surrounded by water, but there was no water inside,” Smith said.
The winter season of 2023-2024 ended up being the wettest on record at several area climate sites, with Smith observing that on “several other days, from December 2023 to March 2024, the Rancocas was within 8 feet or less of the buildings.”
And while, according to Smith, Trinity Church’s insurance company “responded quickly and with no issues” to the floods that have impacted the church, “of course, our premiums keep increasing and we did have deductible payments.”
So, according to the church warden, “this pattern of flooding is why we are elevating the historic church.”
It was about three years ago when Ed Tenthoff, a Vestry member and property chairman for Trinity Church, first suggested the raising of Trinity Church, Smith pointed out, and it led the church to seek the services of Scope Engineering, “largely because of their experience in elevating homes and other buildings along the New Jersey shore.”
“We worked with Scope Engineering, from Forked River, on multiple versions of plans for the elevation including, initially, providing external buttressing for the sanctuary walls,” Smith explained.
But the concept of external buttressing “turned out to be more expensive than we were prepared to commit.”
“So, we concentrated on the elevation to hopefully preserve the church,” Smith told this newspaper.
Final plans from Scope, according to Smith, called for “86 helical piers to be screwed into the ground up to 20 feet to support the buildings in the future.”
“We looked for a helical pier specialist and selected Audubon Helical Piers,” Smith said. “We were comfortable with their ability to do this job, with two connected buildings, due to their work with Newark Airport and the NY/NJ Port Authority. They also committed a senior member, Shawn Pettit, to be our on-site project manager.”
Audubon then selected SJ Hauck Construction “to do the actual lifting,” detailed Smith, noting that “Hauck has lots of experience lifting buildings along the shore and we were comfortable with them lifting our connected buildings.”
Once it is back down, according to Smith, the church will be about 4 feet higher than it has been.
“We are hoping to return to our little church by the creek for Easter,” Smith declared.
Once the church is set permanently in place (again), Smith noted the utilities will need to be reconnected, and given the building’s new prospective height, it will require “handicapped access, either ramps or lifts.”
“Such planning is currently underway,” Smith told this newspaper. “We will also need to explore landscaping once the building is down, but we want to see what the building looks like once it is back down, and examine our finances before committing to that work.”
According to Smith, “our budget for this project is hundreds of thousands of dollars and we can certainly use community support and contributions.”
He noted that efforts to get governmental or historical organizations to help “have been unsuccessful.”
It is in part, he said, because New Jersey’s historical charities are “not allowed to contribute to an active religious community,” while federal agencies, such as FEMA, reportedly “only contribute to a disaster and do nothing to prevent disasters, such as elevating a building.”
Trinity Church currently has about 23 regular parishioners, with over 30 during the holidays, Smith noted.
“We have some endowments that allow us to move forward, and we feel saving this historic building is important to our congregation, and to Vincentown and the larger Southampton area,” Smith asserted. “We have not raised much money so far, other than from within our congregation, which is quite small.”
Trinity Church has set up a GoFundMe account and “would greatly appreciate contributions,” said Smith, with the church warden directing the public to www.trinityvincentown.org , which has instructions on how to contribute to this “monumental project.”
You can also send a check payable to Trinity Church, and in doing so, include “Flood” in the memo field. The church’s mailing address is P.O. Box 2270, Southampton, NJ, 08088.
Trinity Church’s Sunday services, meanwhile, are being held at the Vincentown United Methodist Church, at 9 a.m., during construction. It is where, according to Smith, services have been held previously in the wake of flood damage, with him describing that Vincentown United Methodist Church “has been exceedingly gracious and welcoming.”
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