History
As a merged parish, Grace and St. Peter’s has a tripartite history, and its story stretches back to a time when Hamden was little more than a dusty crisscrossing of paths in the forest.
Doors painted bright red--the traditional color of welcome
The older of the two original parishes was Grace Church, founded by a charter granted by the State of Connecticut on March 16th, 1790. Grace Church’s first building was located on what is today Whitney Avenue, several miles north of Grace and St. Peter’s current location. A new church was built in 1820 on the spot where the new parking garage is being built today. There church remained there from 1829 until, in 1966, it was moved across Dixwell Avenue to its present location. Many of the rectors of Grace Church were scholars, and at one time, the parish was best known as the home of the Rectory School, a boys’ boarding school which operated from 1843-1873. When the parish built a new rectory, it donated the old school building tot he Town of Hamden to use as its first library.
St. Peter’s on the Hill was founded in 1958, when a group of parishioners from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in New Haven were granted permission to form their own church. The group met for two years at the Community Branch Library in Hamden until a church building was built on Benham Street in Hamden, which was dedicated on October 2, 1960. The parish grew, and eventually a fellowship hall was added to the original one-story building. However, by 1978, attendance figures were dropping and the parish was being led by a part-time vicar. Eucharist was being celebrated once a month; during the rest of the month, a Sunday Morning Prayer service was led by lay-people. Attendance continued to drop and finances were in poor shape when in 1983 the Diocese intervened. In 1984 a full-time Vicar was appointed; during the rest of the 1980′s, the congregation grew.
In 1990, the Rector of Grace Church announced his retirement, and during that spring and early summer the two parishes worked out plans for uniting. Each parish had reasons to consider a merger. Grace Church was faced with seriously declining membership; there were almost no children and no indication that the future would bring change. The parish was, however, blessed with a relatively large endowment, a larger building, and a pipe organ. St. Peter’s on the Hill was facing the opposite situation; the money was a concern and parish was still receiving aid from the Diocese. Both congregations saw the advisability of a merger and there was very little opposition to the idea. The two congregations began to worship together on July 1st at Grace Church and on September 9th voted to merge the two parishes, a decision officially ratified at Diocesan Convention in October of that year.
The new parish became Grace and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. It became financially independent from the diocese in 1995.
After the merger the parish sold the Benham Street property to the Coptic Orthodox Church.
