St Peters Parish Church

8400 St Peters Ln, New Kent, VA, USA

Virginia

state

VA - New Kent

county

VA - Williamsburg

city

MUSEUM

TICKETED:

YES

PARKING:

YES

RESTROOMS:

YES

Virginia's General Court confirmed the establishment of St Peter's Parish on April 29, 1679. In the summer of 1700 the vestry ordered that a second Lower Church replace an earlier, structurally weak building known as the Broken Back'd Church. The new church, begun in 1701, was in use by July 1703. To-day it is the oldest parish church in the Diocese of Virginia and the third oldest in the Commonwealth.

SITE FEATURES

Surviving Structures

On this site...

Martha Dandridge, who would later become the wife of Col. George Washington, was born at Chestnut Grove on June 2, 1731. She married Col. Daniel Parke Custis, a member of the vestry and former churchwarden in June 1749. Her father, Major John Dandridge, had also served as churchwarden and vestryman, and her great-grandfather had been the first rector of nearby Bruton Parish. After eight years of marriage she was widowed with two surviving children.

CHURCH

EST. 1703

On the sixth of January 1759 the Rector of St Peter's Parish, the Rev'd Mr. David Mossom, solemnized the marriage of Col. George Washington and the Widow Custis. It has always been assumed that another future First-Lady, Letitia Christian, later the wife of President John Tyler, was baptized in the parish church in 1790.

The original portion of St Peter's Parish Church is one of the few Jacobean structures in America and its 1740 stump tower is also rare. The body of the church is laid in English bond as are only three other colonial Virginia churches. In the church-yard are a number of colonial tombs, and the parish still its Vestry Book (1684-1758) and Register (1685-1786).The parish was represented by Col. William H. Macon at the first Convention of the Diocese of Virginia in 1785. From 1843 when the vestry reorganized and called the Rev'd Edwin A. Dalrymple as rector, Episcopalians and Presbyterians somewhat as one congregation until 1856 by alternating the Liturgy from Sunday to Sunday.