Texas's oldest Episcopal church, founded in 1841, scarred by the 1900 hurricane and a Battle of Galveston cannonball
2216 Ball Street, Galveston, TX 77550
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Church grounds and cemetery are accessible; interior open during services
Access
Wheelchair OK
Level church grounds and adjacent cemetery with paved walkways
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1857 · Oldest Episcopal Church in Texas · Battle of Galveston 1863 · Edward Lea Civil War Burial · 1900 Hurricane Survivor · Storm Grade Raising 1925
Trinity Episcopal Church in Galveston traces its founding to February 1841, when Reverend Benjamin Eaton, an Irish missionary sent to the young Republic of Texas, established the congregation. The parish is the oldest continuously operating Episcopal church in Texas. The current building dates to 1857, replacing an 1842 structure destroyed by a hurricane the following year; a third storm would reshape it again.
The church was present for the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863, when Confederate forces under Magruder retook the island from Union occupation. The fighting left a cannonball embedded in the church structure. Lieutenant Commander Edward Lea, first officer of the captured Union gunboat Harriet Lane, was wounded in the abdomen during the battle and died in the arms of his father — who was serving on the Confederate side as a major of artillery. Lea and his captain, Jonathan Wainwright, were buried in Trinity's cemetery. Lea's tombstone bears his final words: 'My father is here.' The story, which puts a father on one side and a son on the other in the same engagement, ending in that particular reconciliation, has made the grave one of Galveston's most-visited Civil War sites.
Founding rector Eaton died in 1871 after thirty years of service and was buried in a crypt below the altar. Two of his successors died of yellow fever epidemics during the nineteenth century, adding to the parish's death count before the worst disaster arrived.
The Great Storm of September 8, 1900, remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history, killing an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people on the island. Trinity Episcopal was among the churches that suffered catastrophic structural damage when the storm surge swept through the city. The entire south wall collapsed under the force of the surge, killing fifteen parishioners who had sought shelter there. Architect Nicholas Clayton oversaw post-storm renovations; Trinity held its first post-storm service on Easter Sunday 1901. In 1925, the entire structure was raised 4.5 feet to bring it above storm-surge grade — an engineering intervention visible today in the building's relationship to the surrounding street level.
The church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and remains an active parish. Ghost City Tours uses it as the departure point for their Galveston ghost walks, framing the site's accumulated tragedy as the entry point into the island's broader paranormal tradition.
Sources
Trinity Episcopal Church occupies a place in Galveston's paranormal tradition that derives almost entirely from the weight of its documented history rather than from specific investigated phenomena. Ghost City Tours starts its Galveston walks at the church, using the site's accumulated catastrophes — two priests lost to yellow fever, a cannonball through the wall in 1863, fifteen parishioners killed in the 1900 storm — to establish the island's relationship with death before moving on to the more theatrically haunted stops.
The cemetery claims the more specific ghost tradition. Civil War dead from both sides of the January 1, 1863 battle are buried here, and the grave of Lieutenant Commander Edward Lea — who died at 25 in the arms of his Confederate father — generates recurring visitor attention. Accounts in regional paranormal sources describe sensations of being watched near the Civil War section and the impression of movement among the older markers, though no named apparition has been attached to Lea's grave in any documented source.
The south wall of the church, which collapsed during the 1900 storm, does not survive in its original form. The parish has interpreted the 1900 storm losses with historical rather than sensational framing. The ghost-tour tradition nonetheless describes the interior as retaining the presence of the fifteen who sought shelter there and did not survive.
The paranormal claims are generic enough — unnamed storm victims, unnamed soldiers, unnamed parishioners — that they function more as emotional resonance for the site's documented history than as specific folkloric traditions. Ghost tour operators use the church as an anchor and prologue rather than as a destination for specific phenomena.
Notable Entities
Ghost City Tours begins its Galveston ghost walk at Trinity Episcopal Church, using the site to introduce the 1900 hurricane disaster and its toll on Galveston's population. The church grounds anchor the narrative of how the storm reshaped the island. Tours depart from 2216 Ave H.
The church grounds include the historic cemetery containing Lieutenant Commander Edward Lea, the Union naval officer killed at the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863, and buried here beside his Confederate captain. The cemetery also holds Civil War dead from both sides of the battle. The church building, raised 4.5 feet in 1925 following the 1900 storm, shows visible evidence of Galveston's long engineering battle against storm surge.
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