MOST HOLY TRINITY: ITS ORIGINS AND GROWTH

The story of East Hampton's Catholic church, originally called St. Philomena's Church and now the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, began in 1756 with the arrival of the first Catholic family here.

Francis Martin, his wife, and five children were Acadians, exiled from Nova Scotia during the French and English colonial wars because they refused to forsake their faith and swear allegiance to the English. East Hampton Town records show that Nathaniel Baker and Burnet Miller were paid for the "care of French neutrals," and later that Mr. Martin was paid for "keeping the town clock" and for watching sheep in Montauk.

A century later, the few Catholic families who had established permanent residence here had to travel to Sag Harbor to attend Mass, in a former Methodist church that had been purchased and renovated. Visiting pastors from Brooklyn or Queens conducted services every four to six weeks until 1859, when the Rev. Joseph Brunemann arrived to tend the Sag Harbor parish full time.

Father Brunemann, described in commemorative histories of the Buell Lane church as a "zealous missionary," hosted occasional services in East Hampton, in private homes or at Clinton Academy. East Hampton's first Irish Catholic immigrants, James E. Gay and Patrick Lynch, Dubliners who landed here after the ship Catherine ran aground, were members of his congregation, as were Irish servants of members of the summer colony.

By 1883, when Archbishop John Joseph Lynch of Toronto arrived here for a month's vacation, his services at Patrick Lynch's house drew up to 60 celebrants, including "Mrs. Ex-President Tyler" (the former Julia Gardiner), a convert to Catholicism. So many attended that some people had to kneel in the yard, under the windows.

In August 1890, The Star noted that "the young Catholic people of East Hampton gave an entertainment in Clinton Hall on Friday evening which included a genuinely good supper." Fund-raising for a church building had begun. A "social hop" in July 1891 raised $135.

"A good sidewalk" was laid from Main Street to the church property in June 1893, when more than $1,000 had been raised, and in 1894 an agreement was made with George Halsey of Water Mill to build a church, for the sum of $4,700.

The Star reported in August 1894 that the church was to be called St. Bartholomew's. However, St. Philomena's - the choice of the Rev. Lawrence J. Guerin, who served East Hampton's Catholic population during the summer months - prevailed. Father Guerin's "devotion to this obscure virgin-saint," according to a church history, "dated from the death of his sister named Philomena, who had died as a young girl."

In 1962, after the Vatican declassifed Philomena as a saint, Bishop Walter P. Kellenberg announced that the parish had been renamed Church of the Most Holy Trinity.

The church building, which in cluded 20 stained-glass windows donated by congregants and a white and gold altar, was dedicated on Sept. 16, 1894. Inside the white marble cornerstone, The Star reported, was placed a history of the church, a copy of the newspaper, a "Columbian medal, and the names of the Pope, the Bishop of the Diocese, the President, and the governor," as well as a gold dollar coin and cents dated 1743 and 1893.

(Mysteriously, when the cornerstone was removed in March 1994 during repairs to the foundation, inside a Mason jar were found cents dated 1845 and 1890, an 1892 half-dollar, an 1883 Liberty nickel, an 1889 dime, and a wad of disintegrated compost.)

The Sag Harbor priests would come to town by horseback, carriage, or by train after riding to Bridgehampton, and spend the night at a parishioner's house, returning after mass on Sunday morning. East Hampton finally got its own year-round priest, the Rev. Louis M.O. Baber, in 1907. He had a rectory constructed, at a cost of $10,000, and moved in the next year. About 60 families made up Father Baber's flock.

By 1923, with the Ku Klux Klan resurgent in the South, ominous clouds were gathering. The Rev. Andrew Van Antwerpen of Sayville, speaking from the pulpit of the Sag Harbor Presbyterian Church, openly advocated a Klan agenda, not only anti-black and anti-Semitic but anti-Catholic as well.

"The Catholic is to be turned into a Protestant, and lifted up out of ignorance," he proclaimed. "The only 100-percent American is a Protestant."

His diatribe, coming on the heels of a cross-burning in Sagaponack and the appearance of 250 robed Klansmen at a policeman's funeral in Southampton, jolted parishioners at St. Philomena's. They formed the Holy Name Society and embarked on a new course, determining to become more involved in the affairs of the larger community.

Sisters from Sag Harbor's Sacred Heart of Mary order, who had begun teaching children's catechism in 1907, continued until 1956, when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood arrived and the parish established its parochial school. The school, which had 200 students at its height in 1969, closed in 1992.

The parish purchased additional land over the years. Cedar Street property owned by James E. Gay, the shipwrecked sailor, became the church's 16-acre cemetery in 1911, and a site for an Amagansett mission church, which later became St. Peter the Apostle, was acquired in 1920. The former site of the Clinton Gas Works on the south side of Buell Lane was bought for $6,700 in 1924, and a parking lot was added in 1925 to accommodate dozens of newly acquired Ford Model Ts.

In 1938, the year of the big hurricane, the church steeple blew down and had to be replaced.

The Rev. Donald J. Desmond arrived in East Hampton to become Most Holy Trinity's pastor in June 1986. He remains at the church today, where his congregation now numbers some 1,700 families.

JOANNE PILGRIM