Jamestown Church, constructed in brick from 1639 onward, in Jamestown in the Mid-Atlantic state of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

, is one of the oldest surviving building remnants built by Europeans in the original thirteen colonies and in the United States overall. It is now part of Historic Jamestown, and is owned by Preservation Virginia (formerly known as the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities). There have been several sites and stages in the church's history, and its later tower is now the last surviving above-ground structure from the days when Jamestown was the capital of Virginia. The current structure, active as part of the Continuing Anglican movement, is still in use today. The ruins are currently being researched by members of the Jamestown Rediscovery project.

Background

The established religion in England at the time of the colony's founding was the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

, whose basic doctrines and worship services were set out in the

Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...

. The Jamestown settlers naturally brought their religion with them and practised it in Virginia. The Church of England was central to the lives of the

London Company The London Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of London, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N. History Origins The territo ...

leadership, with all of the men required to take an oath acknowledging the supremacy of King James and the lack of authority over him by the Pope before they set sail to Virginia. There was no

separation of church and state The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular s ...

in 17th century England, or in any other European country.Life at Jamestown (PDF)
Accessed 2017-01-05 Despite the de facto requirement for Jamestown colonists to be members of the protestant Church of England, archaeological discoveries of Catholic artifacts at the Jamestown site have led to speculation that at least a few of the early Jamestown settlers may have been crypto-Catholic. Church services in James Fort were held fourteen times a week, with sermons preached at services on Sunday and on either Wednesday or Thursday. Two prayer services, one in the morning and one in the evening, were held Monday through Saturday. An afternoon catechism was also held by the minister on Sunday. After the introduction of strict

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...

by Deputy Governor Sir Thomas Dale in 1611, called

Dale's Code Dale's Code (the Lawes Divine, Morall, and Martial, also known as the laws of 1612) is a code enacted in 1612 by the deputy-governor of Virginia, Sir Thomas Dale. The code, among other things, created a rather authoritarian system of government for ...

, regular church attendance was required, with punishments ranging from loss of food rations to execution for violators who blasphemed "God's holy name" or challenged the authority of a preacher or minister.

History

As a result of detailed surveys of the site by Jamestown Rediscovery, six churches are believed to have been built on two different sites at James Fort. Churches 1-2 were located inside the confines of the original fort, whereas Churches 3-6 were built nearby on the current site, located within the extended wall area of the original fort. The oldest surviving visible section of any structure is the tower, usually dated sometime in the mid 17th century.

The first church

Captain John Smith reported that the first church services were held outdoors "under an awning (which was an old saile)" fastened to three or four trees. Shortly thereafter the settlers built the first church inside the fort in 1607. Smith said it was "a homely thing like a barn set on crachetts, covered with rafts, sedge and earth." This church soon burned down in the fires of January 7, 1608.

The second church

Jamestown Settlement Church Inside (3347051373)

In 2010, archaeologists discovered the site of the second church constructed at Jamestown. It was similar to the first, and built on the same site, but being made of wood, it needed constant repair. When

Lord De La Warr Earl De La Warr ( ) is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1761 for John West, 7th Baron De La Warr. The Earl holds the subsidiary titles of Viscount Cantelupe (1761) in the Peerage of Great Britain, Baron De La Warr ...

arrived as governor in 1610, he found that the church had fallen into a sad state of disrepair, so he had it restored and its furnishings improved. This is the site where on April 5, 1614,

Pocahontas Pocahontas (, ; born Amonute, known as Matoaka, 1596 – March 1617) was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of ...

married

John Rolfe John Rolfe (1585 – March 1622) was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia in 1611. Biography John Rolfe is believed ...

. There is a reconstruction of the second church at Jamestown Settlement.

The third church

In 1617–1619 when

Samuel Argall Sir Samuel Argall (1572 or 1580 – 24 January 1626) was an English adventurer and naval officer. As a sea captain, in 1609, Argall was the first to determine a shorter northern route from England across the Atlantic Ocean to the new English c ...

was governor, he had the inhabitants build a new church "50 foot long and twenty foot broad." Situated nearby the old church, it was wooden and built on a one-foot-wide foundation of cobblestones capped by a wall one brick thick (which are visible under the glass on the floor of the present building). It was in this church where the first Representative Legislative Assembly met, which convened there on July 30, 1619.

The fourth church

In January 1639 Governor

John Harvey John Harvey may refer to: People Academics * John Harvey (astrologer) (1564–1592), English astrologer and physician * John Harvey (architectural historian) (1911–1997), British architectural historian, who wrote on English Gothic architecture ...

reported that he, the Council, the ablest planters, and some sea captains "had contributed to the building of a brick church" at Jamestown. This church was slightly larger than the third church and was built around it over the next few years. It was still unfinished in November 1647 when efforts were made to complete it. It was burned during Bacon's Rebellion on September 19, 1676.

The church tower

Around this time (sometime between 1639 hough possibly earlierand 1700) a brick church tower was added to an existing church building over two distinctly different stages. Once completed, it was about 46 feet (13.8 meters) high with a wooden roof, belfry and two upper floors. In 1699 the churchwardens of James City Parish asked Virginia's General Assembly for money to pay for the "steeple of their church, and towards the repairing of the church". A visitor in 1702 said the Jamestown church had "a tower and a bell". In the 1890s, the tower was strengthened shortly after being acquired by Preservation Virginia.

The fifth church

Ten years later (c. 1686) a fifth church was functioning, probably using the walls and foundations of the fourth church. This church was used until the 1750s when it was abandoned in favor of a new church constructed some three miles from Jamestown. Although the tower remained, the building fell into ruins by the 1790s when the bricks were re-purposed to build the graveyard wall.

The sixth church

The present Memorial Church was built by

the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America is an American organization composed of women who are descended from an ancestor "who came to reside in an American Colony before 1776, and whose services were rendered during the Colonial Pe ...

in 1907 and re-used the original tower. It was built just outside the

cobblestone Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Setts, also called Belgian blocks, are often casually referred to as "cobbles", although a sett is distinct fr ...

foundations of the older 1617 church and the brick foundations of the 1639 church. It was designed by

Edmund M. Wheelwright Edmund March Wheelwright (September 14, 1854 – August 15, 1912) was one of New England's most important architects in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and served as city architect for Boston, Massachusetts from 1891&ndas ...

of Boston. The design is derived from the nearby St. Luke's Church, a similar church surviving from 1682 (though at the time thought to be 1632, thus contemporary to the Jamestown Church). It was dedicated on May 13, 1907. Inside the new building, on the walls are numerous plaques in commemoration of various seventeenth-century figures, including Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, Chanco, John Rolfe, Lord de la Warr, Captain Edwin Maria Wingfield, William Claiborne (treasurer of the colony), John Pott (a physician), and the first poet in America, George Sandys. The introduction of common law is also memorialized on one of the plaques. The restored furnishings in the chancel were of seventeenth-century design, although no specific models were used.

Burials

Inside the churches

In July 2015, the remains of four early figures of the colony were identified by the Jamestown Rediscovery/Smithsonian team in the chancel area of Churches 1-2. The four have been tentatively identified as Rev. Robert Hunt (thought to be the first Anglican minister in the Americas); Capt. Gabriel Archer; Sir Ferdinando Wainman; and Capt. William West. Inside the brick church is the headstone of a knight, called the "Knight's Tomb", believed to be either

Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr ( ; 9 July 1577 – 7 June 1618), was an English merchant and politician, for whom the bay, the river, and, consequently, a Native American people and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named. He was ...

George Yeardley Sir George Yeardley (1587 – November 13, 1627) was a planter and colonial governor of the colony of Virginia. He was also among the first slaveowners in Colonial America. A survivor of the Virginia Company of London's ill-fated Third Supply M ...

. The case for it belonging to Yeardley is reinforced by the will of Adam Thorowgood, a relative of Yeardley, who stated in his 1680 will that he would like to have a tombstone of marble with the coat of arms of Sir George Yeardley and himself, with the same inscription as on the Knight's Tomb.

Outside the churches

By the early 1690s, the graveyard area around the brick church covered about 1.5 acres, extending through the ruins of James Fort, and under the future Confederate fort. The earliest suspected burial was in the 1640s, and the latest known was in May 1807 during the bicentennial event. In total, there were "probably several hundred burials in the original graveyard" with another 50 or so in the region enclosed by the brick wall (built by John Ambler and William Lee in the early 1790s using bricks from the old, ruined church). The other main burial ground in the area is about 250 yards (228.6 meters) to the west, near the large wooden Memorial Cross by the Archaearium and Statehouse ruins. There are "perhaps 300 graves" there, probably dating from the earliest times, all without tombstones.

Excavation and restoration

The area around the church has been gradually cleared of trees and other vegetation to enable archaeological access to the site. Further, a brick wall in front of the church, as well as iron gates, have been removed as well. In 2010, the combined remains of Churches 1 and 2 were discovered by Jamestown Rediscovery archaeologists. A major rehabilitation project in 2013 and 2014 helped to preserve the tower by repairing, relaying, and occasionally replacing bricks. About 5,000 bricks made by craftsmen at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation were used. The replacement bricks were actually produced on-site using local materials and traditional methods. The project was part of the collaboration between Preservation Virginia and the

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has 7300 employees at this location a ...

for the operation of

Historic Jamestowne Historic Jamestown is the cultural heritage site that was the location of the 1607 James Fort and the later 17th-century town of Jamestown in America. It is located on Jamestown Island, on the James River at Jamestown, Virginia and operated as ...

. In the summer of 2016 Summer Field School project members helped out at the Jamestown Rediscovery Lab to uncover artifacts from around the site of the brick church. At the end of November 2016, archaeologists from Jamestown Rediscovery started excavations inside the church to prepare for the 400th anniversary of the first meeting of the General Assembly in July 2019.

Gallery

File:Jamestown Virginia ruin.JPG, 1854 image of the ruins of Jamestown File:Church yard, Jamestown, Va, by Kilburn Brothers 3.jpg, Derelict church yard - Stereoscopic image by Kilburn brothers. Image:Detroit Photographic Company (0845).jpg, View of the tower, ca. 1902 Image:1639 Jamestown Church (2883847775).jpg, Current view of the rebuilt 1907 church File:Jamestown Church 1 - Stierch.jpg, Frontal view of the entrance File:Jamestown, VA 02.jpg, The interior of the 1907 church Image:JamestownChurchInteriorPlaques.jpg, Interior of the 1907 church showing memorial plaques Image:JamestownChurchInteriorPlaques2.jpg, More memorial plaques in the church Image:JamestownChurchFoundations.jpg, Foundations of the older churches, seen through glass in the floor File:Jamestown Church 2 - Stierch.jpg, Closeup of the tower brickwork File:Cemetery, Jamestown Church, Historic Jamestowne, Colonial National Historical Park, Jamestown, Virginia (14238992630).jpg, Graveyard at the church Image:JamestownGraveyard.jpg, Graveyard at the church File:Jamestown Settlement Church Inside (3347051373).jpg, Interior of the reconstructed second Jamestown church at Jamestown Settlement

References

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External links

Original Church - at Jamestown RediscoveryCurrent Church- at Jamestown Rediscovery
Religious buildings and structures completed in 1643 Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Episcopal churches in Virginia Churches in James City County, Virginia Churches in Hampton Roads, Virginia Jacobean architecture in Virginia Gothic Revival architecture in Virginia 17th-century Episcopal church buildings National Society of the Colonial Dames of America Rebuilt buildings and structures in Virginia National Register of Historic Places in James City County, Virginia 1639 establishments in Virginia Burials at Jamestown Church