St. Ann's Church collection

St. Ann's Church, the oldest Episcopal church in Brooklyn, was incorporated in 1787 as the Episcopal Church of Brooklyn. For its first few years of existence, the Church's services were alternately held in various homes and barns, with significiant financial support being provided by Ann and Joshua Sands. The Sands family later provided a plot of land on their farm for the Church to erect its first edifice, and in 1795, the Church was reincorporated as St. Ann's Church in honor of Mrs. Sands. Throughout the 19th century, the church underwent many location changes. Its first relocation occurred in 1805, when it moved into a larger building on Sands Street. When this building was damaged by the explosion of a neighboring powder house, the Church relocated to a site on Washington Street in 1825. In the 1860s, the Washington Street location was slated to be demolished to make way for the approach of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Church moved yet again to a site on Clinton and Livingston Streets in the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights, which was completed in 1869. The Church's last relocation did not occur until a century later, when the congregation purchased the nearby building of the recently-dissolved Church of the Holy Trinity. Upon moving into the new building, located at Clinton and Montague Streets, St. Ann's Church became known as St. Ann's and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. The Church's building, revered for its Gothic Revival design, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. As of 2010, St. Ann's and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church remains at this landmarked location.