Yeocomico Church is a colonial-era Episcopal church near Kinsale in Westmoreland County in the U.S. state of Virginia. The church building dates as far back as 1706. It is now the main church of Cople Parish, which also includes Nomini Church near Mount Holly. Yeocomico Church, the fourth oldest in the state, was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1970. and
The cemetery includes the graves of several bishops and author John Dos Passos.
History
Colonial era
In 1653, the western boundary of Northumberland County was set at Nomini Creek, and shortly thereafter a parish was ordered on the western end, perhaps briefly named Westbury. (This part of the county, west of Hampton Hall Creek, would be transferred to Westmoreland County in the 1664 reorganization. In that reorganization the eastern part of the reboundaried Westmoreland County, including the former Westbury parish, was organized as Cople Parish.) With the appointment of the first vestry in 1655, Yeocomico's original wooden structure was built that year, parts of which were incorporated into the successor church. That first building was replaced in 1706 by a structure built of locally fired bricks.
American Revolution and after
According to local tradition, the church became barracks during the American Revolution. A special tax assessment was made for repairs to the church in 1788, a period where the Episcopal Church was still government-supported in Virginia. The church was, like most other Anglican churches in Virginia, abandoned after either the Revolution or the Episcopal Church's disestablishment (in Virginia) circa 1794. Its last 18th century rector was present in 1799 but thereafter disappears from the record. Afterwards, as the building fell into disrepair, sheep were reportedly stabled there overnight from time to time.
During the War of 1812, part of the U.S. 36th Regiment camped in the courtyard. Among the soldiers of the 36th was William L. Rogers from Princeton, New Jersey, who after the war would return and marry Ann Ballantine Murphy, daughter of the owners of Ayrfield, the property adjacent to the church. Rogers wrote a letter to Bishop William Meade forty years later in which he described the condition of the church in 1814: "Its doors were open, its windows broken, the roof partly decayed and fallen in, and, to complete its apparent hopeless fate, a pine-tree thirty or forty feet nigh was blown up by the roots and lay across the main structure."Letter from William L. Rogers to Bishop William Meade, dated March 20, 1857, quoted in Meade II, p.155 The soldiers undertook to remove the tree, and to "cleanse the church and repair it as far as practicable, to make it a safe depository for our stores and camp-equipage."Meade II, p.156 Rogers relates that, after they had been ordered to the defense of Fort McHenry, a "company of militia from the upper country" had set up camp there, and caused considerable damage to the church as well as the surrounding countryside. They used the communion table as a chopping block,Meade II, p.157 although its surface was later restored. Some "American patrol" (likely part of this latter group) took away the baptismal font to use as a drinking bowl. The baptismal font was regained and taken to Ayrfield where Mr. Murphy restored it. On a later visit in 1820, Rogers was so disturbed at the church's condition that he persuaded his father-in-law to enlist the aid of other neighbors to do what repairs and restoration they could.
In 1838, when bishop Meade visited, he noted that "The architecture is rough, but very strong, and the materials must have been of the best kind.... It has undergone but little repair since its first erection, and indeed has needed little. It is not known or believed that a single new shingle has ever been put upon the roof, and the pews and whole interior are the same."Meade II pp.148-49 Meade was then (in 1838) unaware of the 1788 repairs that had been made; nor did he know the extent of repairs undertaken in the 1820s and early 1830s, though he knew that the leaders of the latter efforts were Mr. Murphy (by then deceased) and Mr. Rogers. By this time, the Rev. Washington Nelson had been conducting occasional services in the parish for some time, though not in the church at first. Rev. Nelson was serving parishes in Richmond County as well; he appears to have been formally installed as "settled minister" of Cople Parish by 1834.Meade II, pp.147,149-50,154
In 1844, a local congregation of Methodists sued to take possession of the church, but it legally reverted to the EpiscopaliansMeade II pp.153-54; Rawlings 57 who continue its use as an active congregation."The Episcopal Churches of Cople Parish" Major repairs to the brickwork, windows, and roof ware performed in 1928 and an initial plaque was installed above the chancel's round window. Electricity was added in 1947 and a heating system in 1949. The roof shingles were replaced in 1954. Ameslee Hall, the new vestry hall with architectural features compatible with Yeocomico Church, was added several years ago.
Dating
This is the fourth oldest complete church in Virginia preceded by Newport Parish in Smithfield 1680, York-Hampton Parish Church (Grace Church) 1697, and St. Peter's in New Kent County 1701. The original part of the present building can be assigned a date of 1706 according to a dating brick in the south east wall.Rawlings 52 The north wing was most likely erected circa 1725.Rawlings 58; Upton xv It is the second church on this site; the earlier building was a wooden structure of "oak timbers, sheathed with clapboards.". Curiously, parts of the wooden structure, including a corner post inside the east gable and a portion of a beam were found embedded in the walls. It has been suggested with no real proof that the brick walls were erected around the frame of the earlier wooden one, essentially encasing it. It is far more likely that some wooden elements of the earlier church were re-used in the construction of the present brick edifice.Rawlings 56
Parish affiliation Like most early churches in Virginia, Yeocomico Church's parish membership has changed as the population of Westmoreland County grew or shifted. A brief outline shows this: 1653: Part of Lower Nominy or Westbury Parish: Westmoreland County established, but Yeocomico Church was still in Northumberland County 1661: Upper Nominy Parish became Appomattocks Parish 1662: Westmoreland and Northumberland counties temporarily reunited 1664: Westmoreland County reorganized to include western Northumberland County while the entire western chunk of former Westmoreland was carved off as Stafford County 1664-68: Lower Nominy (and Westbury) Parish was renamed Cople ParishThe name Cople was chosen to honor Col. Nicholas Spencer, a London merchant recently arrived in the Colony. A cousin of the Lords Culpepper and their agent in business affairs, Spencer became a burgess, Secretary and President of the Council, and eventually acting Governor on the departure of Lord Thomas Culpepper from the colony. Spencer was a native of Cople, Bedfordshire, England, where his family had lived for many years. before 1668.Rawlings 50 It is the only remaining colonial church in Cople Parish and Westmoreland County.
Other churches The Cople Parish also includes the Nomini Church () near Mount Holly and the St. James Church (built 1890) in Tidwells, Virginia. The original building for the Nomini Church was built around 1648 on the west side of Nomini Creek near Mount Holly, and replaced by a new building across the creek in 1704, which itself was replaced in 1751. The present church was built on the east bank of the creek somewhere near 1850, but in infrequent use for much of the last century and damaged by a tornado in February 2016.
Architecture Yeocomico is a room church that shows a combination of features from the Virginia Gothic tradition, as in Newport Parish and St. Peter's, New Kent County, combined with the emerging Classical style of the Virginia church of the eighteenth century. Its unique features are: The presence of a southwest doorway with an enclosing porch The first example of kicked eaves in a colonial church The establishment of a baroque juxtaposition of "masses and complex shapes" Reduction of exterior decoration to understated elements Corbelling of the corners of the church and porch A belt course of glazed brick Diapering on the porch façade A series of brick arches filled with plaster on the porch façade Corbels on the gables A wicket door Brick ornaments of initial plaques, emblem plaques, and a millstone inserted in the chancel upper window.Rawlings 58; Upton 69
Dimensions The church is T-shaped with irregular dimensions and bonds on the brick walls. The bricks themselves were supposedly dug and kilned a hundred yards to the northeast of the church. There is a marker with a brass plaque indicating this in the churchyard. The chancel and west walls of the east-west wing that form the main body of the church and comprise its earliest sections differ significantly in their dimensions. The other structures of the church, the north wing and the porch, show a similar variability.
Main church North WingPorchNorth WingSouth WallNE WallNW WallNorth WallEast WallWest WallSouth WallWest WallEast Wallto South Wall51' 3"26' 3"27' 4" 26' 7" 26' 4" 23' 11"13' 1"12' 9"12' 11"50' 8"Rawlings 50-51 Also the north wing and the porch are not aligned but offset so that the porch stands far to the west of the north wing. The dimensions of the main building, the north wing, and the porch are singular in being so varied; all other Virginia churches have north-south and east-walls perfectly aligned with equal dimensions. The best consensus is that the church was most likely built as a rectangular edifice in 1706 with the north wing added in the 1720s.
Brickwork The brickwork is typical of Virginia colonial churches in being laid with a water table, a section standing on the foundation, a brick's length wider than the walls that are nineteen inches thick. The transition from the water table to the walls is made with an ovolo, a convex ¼ round, molded brick. As is the custom, English bond is present on all of the water table. The walls, however, are varied in their brickwork with some sections being laid in Flemish bond, other sections in English bond, and still other sections in irregular, mixed bond. Flemish bond is used regularly on the porch and most of the south wall. English bond is used on the upper eastern part of the south wall, the east and west gables, two sections of the north wall and the chancel wall. The north wing is a mixture of Flemish and irregular bonds. Glazed headers are used with some regularity in the walls as is typical with Flemish bond, but some sections show an irregular use of this feature alsoRawlings 51
All of the walls show extensive repointing and other repairs to the brick and mortar. These may be of late nineteenth- or twentieth-century origin as Meade reports in an 1838 visit that few repairs were evident.Meade II 149 The present edifice, however, shows alterations to almost all of the surfaces: south wall of porch; west wall of porch; upper right part of south wall; south wall under window and lower left corner; vertical line between window and eastern doorway; water table between window and eastern doorway; chancel wall on east; chancel gable; chancel water table; north wall of chancel around small window; north gable apex; west wall lower left; north wall of nave; west wall of nave.
Doors The location of and features of the doors make this church a study in the transition from the Gothic room church to the Classical room church in Virginia.
Wicket door