East 7th and Church Street brings you to Holy Trinity Church, known as Old Swedes, in Wilmington, Delaware. This building was constructed in 1698–99 and consecrated on Trinity Sunday, June 4, 1699, by a predominantly Swedish congregation formerly of the colony of New Sweden. The walls you face were built of local blue granite and Swedish bricks that had once served as ship’s ballast.
The site itself sits on Fort Christina’s burial ground, which dates to 1638, and the church is among the few surviving public buildings that reflect the Swedish colonial effort here. It remains open for tours and religious activities, and has national recognition: designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and incorporated into First State National Historical Park in 2013. You might also notice that the church appears on the obverse of the 1937 Delaware Tercentenary half dollar.
Recent parish figures show 822 members in 2021 and 436 in 2023, with plate and pledge income reported in 2024 of $367,899 and an average Sunday attendance of 127. Picture the ship's-ballast bricks and blue granite in these walls, and follow the churchyard out toward the corner of East 7th and Church Street.