According
to Captain John Smith, the first services held by the settlers was held
outside, beneath the trees, under a sail used as an awning. The
first actual church was made like a barn. It burned down in January of
1608. Another was built, designed much like the first and was in
constant need of repair. Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married
in that church.
The third church was also of wood, built during the period of
1617-1619. Samuel Argall
had
the settlers build the 50 foot long structure while he was the governor
of the Virginia colony. Argall was an uncle of Volga Farley Clifton,
the photographer of Buford
Clifton, seen above,
standing in the church entrance. The cobblestone
foundation can still be
seen under the glass on the floor of the present building. The
First Assembly was held in the third church.
In January of 1639,
Governor John Harvey noted that he, the council, the ablest planters,
and some sea captains, "had contributed to the building of a brick
church" at the site. The brick church was slightly larger than
the third church. It was still not finished in November 1647 when
efforts were made to complete it.
|
|
The bell tower was added after the
building was completed. The tower is the only seventeenth century
building still standing at Jamestown, and is one of the oldest
English-built structures in the United States. Originally the tower was
46 feet high - ten feet higher than the ruins, and was crowned with a
wooden roof and belfry.
The fifth church was built after the
fourth one was burned during Bacon's Rebellion, 18 September 1676, and
was used until the 1750s. Only the tower remains of that
structure.
The present church was built in 1906 by the National
Society, Colonial Dames of America, just outside the foundations of the
earlier structures. It was dedicated in 1907.
Source:
Jamestowne/jamestown-church.htm
|
