Colonial Churches in Old Dominion

By Georgia Dickinson Wardlaw

One of the oldest of Virginia's Colonial Churches--after St. Luke's in Isle of Wight County--is a little brick church of marked simplicity, known as Merchant's Hope--set deep among the pines in the wider angle of the James and Appomattox Rivers, in what is today Prince George County.

Dating back to 1657--the quaint brick building a quadrangle 60 by 30 feet, with walls three feet thick and tall round--arched windows--bears a striking resemblance to Ware Church in Gloucester, and Westover Church in Charles City County, both of which are of a considerably later date. But for the absences of ancient ivy clinging tenaciously to the weather-beaten brick over the entrance door, one might easily confuse Merchant's Hope with Mrs. Byrd's church.

Not often--if ever--did a church in Virginia come by its name as did Merchant's Hope, which was named for a small vessel that plied the Atlantic in the 1630's bringing cargoes from the Mother Country, and returning loaded with Virginia tobacco. This small vessel had given its name first, to the settlement which lay between such ancient seats as Bermuda Hundred, planted by Sir Thomas Dale, and Martin's Brandon--thence to the church which the settlement had built.

A company of adventurers, including none other than in-laws of William Shakespeare (among them Richard Quincy whose brother, Thomas, had married Shakespeare's daughter, Judith), had developed all that region--and it was the little ship--Merchant's Hope--that was freighted with their fortunes. Small wonder that the spirits of those romantic figures--sea roving adventurers, should haunt the secluded grounds of this sturdy little church, where the play of sunlight and shadows seems never ending.

For one reason or another the church seems never to have had the usual graveyard about it, though the long arms of the ancient pines which surround it offer a shelter and shade indescribably restful. Perhaps it was because the estates of the James River gentry near by were so large, and their houses so widely separated, that the custom of private graveyards prevailed, as that eminent authority on Colonial Churches in Virginia, H. Irving Brock, writes was the case in many parts of Virginia.

One cannot leave the quaint little church of Merchant's Hope, without marvelling at the consideration given space and solidarity--when building in the wilderness that was Virginia 300 years ago. For at Old Merchant's Hope are aisles six feet wide--paved with tiles 18 inches square, which on the under side bear a stamp of import from England. And its mellowed, weathered brick walls stand firm and strong on their original foundation.

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Coincident with the founding of Petersburg was the building of Blandford Church, named for the family which furnished the Theoderick Bland who at one time owned the vast tract of land called Westover, which he sold to William Byrd; and the second Theoderick who laid out Williamsburg under Governor Nicholson.

Not one of the oldest--yet one of the must beautiful of Virginia's Colonial churches, Blandford was built in the year 1733 or soon thereafter, for it was in use in 1737.

Prominent names appear among the vestrymen responsible for its building, among them Colonel Robert Bolling, Captain Peter Jones for whom "Peter's Point" was named, and the aforesaid Theoderick Bland. Being men of position and wealth they spared neither money nor thought in the construction and minute plans for their church.

Set "on Wellses Hill for the convenience of this (Bristol) Parish"--the original building was a quadrangle of brick, 60 by 25 feet, with "compass ceiling" and "compass windows"--a somewhat quaint albeit accurate description of their round arched effect. The aisles were ordered to be "six feet wide and laid the Bristol Stone," and the roof "covered with plank and shingled on that with good Cypress Hart Shingles."

The west end was to have a gallery with a window--"as big as the pitch will admit." Sometime between 1752 and 1764 an addition on the south side altered the original plan of the church to that of a T-Cross, and at the same time a wall five feet high--resembling the one at old Bruton--was built around the churchyard.

Blandford is "Cathedral of Confederacy"

Churches, like men, have suffered for history's making, not least among them Blandford Church. During the Revolution, Petersburg experienced the first of its two famous sieges, when Lafayette cannonaded the British in the town in 1781. The British General Phillips was killed--and buried (so tradition says) at Blandford.

For more than a century the church lay in desolation and ruin--then in the closing days of the confederacy, shot and shell battered its walls, making the work of restoration one of great difficulty. In 1880 repairs were begun and through the efforts of the Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburg, Blandford Church was transformed into a magnificent memorial to the soldiers who lost their lives in the defense of Petersburg and Richmond. Tiffany windows, given by each of the 13 Confederate States in memory of their 30,000 warrior-dead who lie buried in Blandford Churchyard, give the church one of the most impressive and beautiful interiors in the South, and have made it the mecca for thousands of tourists.

This modern touch of splendor has robbed Blandford of the simplicity that characterizes most, if not all, of Virginia's Colonial churches, but its grandeur and beauty one never forgets, when the burning rays of the sun light up the brilliant reds and blues and ambers of the 13 stained-glass windows.

Truly Blandford is Virginia's Cathedral of the Confederacy--a fitting and unforgettable shrine to those dear dead of five different wars--but especially to the 30,000 who fought and perished at Petersburg under the Stars and Bars of the Southland.

Old St. John's Had Real Liberty Bell

Of Virginia's many Colonial churches, it remains for Richmond to lay claim to the one most indissolubly linked with fame--that of old St. John's on Church Hill. It has been said by one authority on historic churches that St. Johns is "more securely anchored in the world's pantheon of fame than any of them perhaps--a church which is tagged for eternity to great events. . ."

All of this, because in March, 1775, the Virginia Convention met in the old church to determine on armed resistance to England. The assemblage included such illustrious sons of the Old Dominion as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Benjamin Harris, Edmund Pendleton, Andrew Lewis, Archibald Cary, Carter Braxton, Thomas Marshall, and others, into whose startled ears Patrick Henry poured his impassioned plea--"I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Liberty or give me Death!"

It remained for Ripley in his "Believe it or Not" sketches, to remind the world that it was Richmond, and not Philadelphia, that had the first Liberty Bell; that this bell and not the famous one in the City of Brotherly Love, really tolled the first call for American freedom, and that it hung in the belfry at Old St. John's Church when Patrick Henry cried out his immortal words.

The old bell had been cast at the Van Lew and Company foundry in Richmond, and was part and parcel of St. John's Church in 1775. In 1830 it was sold to James M. Smith, Sr. of Martinsville, and passed to Colonel and Mrs. Bryant of Martinsville, who presented it in 1900 to the Virginia Historical Society, where today it is displayed among the Society's most valued and treasured relics pertaining to Virginia's history.

Eight years after Richmond was founded at "The Falls" of the James in 1733, St. John's Church was built on the hill known as "Indian Town" above Shockhoe Creek, then called "Shaco." William Byrd, founder of Richmond, gave two of the lots, which became a part of the churchyard. The original plans for the church were simple enough--a wooden quadrangle 60 feet long, and 25 feet wide, lying east and west. In 1772 the church was enlarged 40 feet each way, and it was in this expanded building that the Virginia Convention met three years later. Not until after 1830 was the present tower added, and from still later additions made in 1905 the old wooden church of St. John's took on its present cruciform character.

Baptismal Font Has Interesting Tradition

Strangely enough, the church was not always known as St. John's--this sainted title not having been acquired until sometime after the close of the eighteenth century. The original designation would be interesting to know, for as has been see, saint's names for some rather inexplicable reason, did not predominate among Virginia's earliest churches--Merchant's Hope, Bruton, Nomini, Yeocomico, Ware, Westover and numerous others being outstanding examples.

Of tradition concerning St. John's Church, one of it's most interesting stories is attached to the baptismal font, said to be 300 years old. A beautifully fluted bowl of Virginia limestone, this sacred font is said to have once been stolen by Indians, and used for grinding corn. From whence it originally came--and how it found its way back into the hallowed walls of the church, no one seems to know, but the story has been handed down through the years.