Travel

Under the Oaks – Christ Episcopal Church

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Charles Wesley preached here on March 14, 1736.  It was the first service to be held at the new mission on St. Simon’s Island. There was no actual church building so Reverend Wesley preached right there under the live oak trees with limbs stretching out over an acre and with trunks so large you cannot reach your arms around them – trees that were as old as, well…. the trees.

I like to think that first sermon was in the cool of the evening after a long hot day… new settlers in from a long day’s work clearing fields, soldiers from nearby Fort Frederica, watermen brought in with the tide hauling bushels of crabs or shrimp – everyone from the small colony…. men, women, and children gathering to sing a few hymns and hear the words of the Lord.  George Whitfield, who was a deacon at the Savannah church at the time remembered:

“In the evening we had publick Prayers, and expounding of the second Lesson under a large tree, and many more present than could be expected.” 1 (Aug 8, 1737)

The oak no longer stands. It has long since succumbed to storms and damage and time.  There is a Georgia Historical Marker at the site that commemorates the “Wesley Oak” that stands very close to another ancient oak tree, so everyone just seems to think that is the actual oak where Wesley preached.  Yep, me too. Even took a photo with Jerry hugging the tree.  Actually taking the time to read the marker helps.  So, I have a great photo of an old oak tree that is NOT the Wesley Oak…. still a beautiful oak tree that is very picture worthy in its own right.  The original oak is gone but a cross was made from the wood and now hangs inside the church to further commemorate the man and the sermon that evening on St. Simon’s Island.

Charles was the brother of the Reverend John Wesley, the rector at the Christ Chapel in Savannah. Both brothers were sent out from the Church of England.  Brother Charles had traveled to St. Simon’s Island in the Georgia colony as a chaplain for James Oglethorpe, credited as the founder of the state. Oglethorpe had established Fort Frederica on the island on February 15, 1736 and brought in Scottish soldiers to help secure the frontier.  I do not suppose anyone thinks of the low country and barrier islands along the Georgia coast as “the frontier” these days and I daresay not too many people worry about protection when they visit, but in 1736, it was pretty much the edge of nowhere, full of all sorts of danger…. and possible Spanish colonists that couldn’t be allowed.

Charles Wesley established a mission on the island and preached that first sermon on March 14, 1736.  In the beginning, he held services in a small tabby (cement & broken up seashells) building within the walls of Fort Frederica. He served the congregation on the island at the small mission until July 1736.  The United Society Partners in the Gospel provided clergy for the mission/church during the 1700’s. After America’s Revolutionary War, the local churches broke away from the Church of England (understandably) becoming Episcopal churches in the US.

The first permanent church on the property was built in 1820. This church stood until the American Civil War when it was mostly destroyed.  Christ Episcopal Church at St. Simon’s was incorporated by state legislature in 1808 and given one hundred and eight acres on the island near Fort Frederica. Reverend William Best was the first rector of the newly incorporated Christ Episcopal Church which joined other churches to form the Episcopal Diocese in 1823.  On a sidenote, church history from Wikipedia 5 indicates that in 1840, bees built a hive in the church steeple. The congregants collected and sold honey to raise money for building repairs.  Two thoughts come quickly to mind; 1) this just has to be an early predecessor to more church bake sales than you can shake a stick at, and 2) I wonder if the bees “hummed” along with the singing during church services.

Christ Church continued to be served by lay ministers who visited the area as circuit riders at intervals in the 1800’s. It wasn’t clear where the congregation met once the church building was destroyed although under the trees seems to have worked out okay.  In 1879, Anson Greene Phelps Dodge, Jr. (Deacon and then Rector) reorganized the parish and, in 1884, had the church rebuilt in memory of his wife who was buried on the grounds. 

Reverend Dodge also established another church, St. Ignatius, nearby on Demere Road as an outreach to slaves that had been freed after the war.  Anna Alexander, a deaconess who served at St. Ignatius, is noteworthy as the first black deaconess in the Episcopal Church.  In 1998, she was named as a saint in the church by the Episcopal Diocese.  In the 1980’s, St. Ignatius was closed and merged with Christ Episcopal Church.  Christ Episcopal Church continues to be an active congregation with services still being held throughout the year.  Visitors are made welcome. (According to the church website, about 20,000 people visit the church each year.)

“Our grounds and our faith are historic, built upon the foundations laid by our ancestors on this island and the host of saints who have come before us.” 4

We were blessed in that the church was open on the day we visited, and we were able to go inside and enjoy the beauty of the church.  The interior of the building, which is quite simple and beautiful, was built with local heart pine which has never been stained or painted. 

We also spent quite a bit of time in the cemetery on the grounds. Many of the tombstones there are as old as the trees that surround them.  The oldest tombstone is 1803 although it is thought that there are older graves there. The cemetery includes the graves of the Rectors of the church and their families, early settlers, Officers of the British Army who served nearby, and soldiers from every war fought by the US.3

The day we visited was a quiet one with only one other couple strolling through the grounds reading the inscriptions on the gravestones, a Pastor and his wife visiting from Tennessee. 

Before we left, we asked the pastor to say a prayer with us. He obliged praying for safety in our travels and asked God to bless the church and bring souls to salvation there in the future. We prayed under the beautiful live oak trees where some 300 years ago, the Reverend Charles Wesley had preached and, no doubt, had prayed the same prayer for mercy and salvation. Amen

Notes & Sources with links:

  1. Georgia Historical Marker 063-33A, 1968, Christ Episcopal Church (I was unable to locate the link for the specific marker online so included the link for the main site.)
  2. Georgia Historical Marker 063-34A, Wesley Oak (Unable to locate the link for the specific marker.)
  3. Georgia Historical Marker 063-35, Christ Church Cemetery
  4. Christ Episcopal Church Website/About Us /(ccfssi.org)
  5. Wikipedia, Christ Church (St. Simons, Georgia)

If you’d like to visit Christ Episcopal Church:

There are two locations on St. Simons Island. The main Church and offices are located at 6329 Frederica Rd., St. Simons Island, GA 31522. St. Ignatius Chapel is located at 2609 Demere Rd., St. Simons Island, GA 31522. 4

Stone’s Chapel

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“This was the church I went to when I was a child. I remember going to church in the summer and it would be hot so they would open the windows to try to stir up a little breeze throughout the church. The church sat beside a pasture where cows grazed. When the congregation would start singing, the cows in the pasture would lope on over to the wooden fence and lean their heads over the fence and start to moo … singing right along with the people in church. I recall that they did not muuurrrr too much during the sermon but they certainly did seem to enjoy the hymns.” (Jerry Hanline)

Stone’s Chapel is still there on Crum’s Church Road in Clarke County near Berryville, Virginia. So is the pasture with its sturdy wood and wire fence. And there are still cows grazing in the field munching on clover and Queen Anne’s Lace and the native grasses that grow there. But the congregation is no longer there…..no longer gathering on Sunday morning for the worship service….no longer opening the windows to catch the breeze or to sing the old hymns from the old blue-backed Presbyterian hymnal. After more than two hundred years, the chapel is now as still and quiet as the graves in the cemetery outside.

There has been a church at this site since 1740. Historical records note that there was a log building on the site as early as 1785. The first meetings were held in an old barn owned by Jacob Mauser. The earliest settlers in the area were mostly German and Scotch-Irish who were members of the Reform Church of Europe who worshiped God under the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin. In the new world, here in Berryville, the church building was used by both the Lutherans and the Calvinists for the first twenty-five years (25) of its existence.

The first Lutheran minister of record was the Reverend Christian Streit, a Lutheran Revolutionary War chaplain, who served his congregation from 1785 to 1812. Pastor Streit held the first communion at the church on October 30, 1785. How wonderful to consider these early American Christians gathering in a barn….no more than a stable really….to worship and take communion.

The Lutheran congregation knew their church as the Stenkirche Lutheran Church. In 1810, the Lutheran congregation moved to Union Church in Smithfield (now Middleway, West Virginia) but they continued to use the cemetery at Stone’s Chapel throughout the 19th century.

As for the Calvinists, Stone’s Chapel was first mentioned in local Presbyterian records in 1878. Prior to 1853 when the Berryville Presbytery was established, pastors were provided by the Winchester Presbytery. The first pastor for Stone’s Chapel was Reverend J.H.C. Leach who was appointed in 1824. Over the years several more pastors were provided by the Winchester Presbytery. Then in September 1885, the local Berryville pastor agreed to conduct services twice a month at Stone’s Chapel – a morning service on the third Sunday of each month and an afternoon service on the first Sunday of each month. On July 31, 1886, Stone’s Chapel was established as a separate church starting with just fifteen (15) members, eleven (11) of which had transferred over from the Berryville Presbytery.

The chapel was named after Jacob Stone (formerly Stine) who donated land for the church cemetery which has about two hundred marked graves dating back to the 1700’s and includes the graves of at least three Revolutionary War soldiers. The first burial on record was the son of Daniel Hukedom on August 18, 1786. The deed which transferred the property from Jacob and Barbara Stone to the Trustees of the Lutheran and Calvinist Societies was recorded in 1793. Ownership and maintenance of the cemetery was taken over by the Clarke County Cemetery Association in the 1950’s. (Note: the church was also originally called Stine’s Chapel. The name was changed when Jacob Stine anglicized his name to Stone.)

The current building was constructed in 1848. In 1905, it was renovated to add the vestibule tower and the back addition for Sunday School. At that time a new slate roof was added along with stained glass windows, a mahogany pulpit and a pipe organ. (I think maybe what we thought was a choir loft or gallery must have been home to the pipe organ.)

Stone’s Chapel was an active Presbyterian church until it was decommissioned in 2000. The Chapel had its last meeting on Easter Sunday, April 24, 2000.

I had the opportunity to attend this last meeting along with other members of my husband’s family who all traveled up to Berryville to attend that final service with their mother. It was a warm spring day and a lovely way to end more than two centuries of worshipping God there with the local assembly although I have to admit that I was sorely disappointed that the cows didn’t come on over and sing along with us.

Today the church is owned and maintained by the Stone’s Chapel Memorial Association. Donations for the upkeep and preservation of the chapel can be made to:

Stone’s Chapel Memorial Association
Post Office Box 844
Berryville, VA 22611.

  1. Source information for this article was found at https://stoneschapel.org/history/ .
  2. For information about the Revolutionary War veterans buried at Stone’s Chapel, see https://stoneschapel.org/cemetery/ .
  3. Other historical information was taken from the Stone’s Chapel Program/Pamphlet handed out for the final service on April 24, 2000.
  4. Stone’s Chapel is located on Crum’s Church Road – Routes 632 and 761 in Clarke County.