Church on the Main

V-46

Less than one mile to the east is the site of the Church on the Main, a brick Anglican church built by the 1750s to serve James City Parish as replacement for the church on Jamestown Island, which had become difficult for communicants to reach. The Rev. James Madison (1749-1812) was its best-known rector, serving the church from about 1777 until it fell into disuse after the American Revolution and the disestablishment of the Anglican Church. Madison became president of the College of William and Mary (1777-1812) and Virginia's first Episcopal Bishop in 1790. By 1857 all aboveground traces of the church were gone.

Department of Historic Resources, 2004

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Church Site (44 JC102), DHR; Susan H. Godson, The College of William & Mary: A History (Williamsburg, Va.: King and Queen Press, 1993), 128-129; Governor’s Land Archaeological District, National Register of Historic Places Archives File (47-82), DHR; George MacLaren “James City Parish in Virginia,” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 11(1942): 65-82; H.R. McIlwaine, Journals of the House of Burgesses, 1742-1748 (Richmond, Va.: Virginia State Library, MCMIX), 300, 205, 315; George Carrington Mason, Colonial Churches of Tidewater Virginia (Richmond: Whittet and Shepperson, 1945), 15-16; William Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia (1857; Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1992), 113-115; Martha W. McCartney, James City County: Keystone of the Commonwealth (Virginia Beach, Va.: Donning Company Publishers, 1997), 195, 205, 545; Martha W. McCartney, Jamestown Archaeological Assessment: Documentary History of Jamestown Island (3 Vols.) (Williamsburg, Virginia, 2000): 1:241, 1:214; William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Episcopal Pulpit; or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished Clergymen of the Episcopal Church of the United States, vol. 5 in a series of 9 (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1859), 318-324; Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Cradle of the Republic: Jamestown and James River (Richmond, Va. : Hermitage Press, 1906), 148-149; William & Mary Faculty Minutes, Special Collections, Earl Gregg Swem Library, William & Mary College.