Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church

SA-138

Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, originally several blocks east of here, was dedicated on 18 April 1875 to serve an area of the Sheep Hill community later known as Carver. The Rev. William Troy, a founder of the church and its first pastor, was a freeborn man of color from Virginia who, as a resident of Canada before the Civil War, had become a prominent abolitionist associated with the Underground Railroad. On the church’s property stood the Moore Street Industrial Institution, a school for Black students. Church member Virginia E. Randolph (1870-1958) became widely known as an educational innovator through her work in Henrico County’s schools. The congregation moved here in 1908.

Department of Historic Resources, 2025

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

William Troy, Hair-breath Escapes from Slavery to Freedom (1861). Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church minute book, Library of Virginia. “History of Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church,” Moving from the Past into the Future (2004). Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, “Our Centennial Year” (1975). Richmond Daily Dispatch, 20 April 1875, 1 Jan, 3 Feb. 1876, 18 Sept. 1877. Elvatrice Belsches, “Virginia Estelle Randolph (1870–1958)” Encyclopedia Virginia (2020): https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/randolph-virginia-estelle-1870-1958/ “Reverend William Troy,” Windsor Public Library: https://www.windsorpubliclibrary.com/?page_id=63365 Clark v. Oliver, Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia (1895): 422-429 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030202014&seq=472&q1=%22Moore+Street%22 Michael B. Chesson, “John Oliver (d. 1899),” Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2021. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.php?b=Oliver_John