Grace Episcopal Church

W-242

The vestry of Fredericksville Parish commissioned a church for this site in 1745. First known as Middle Church, the wood-frame building was later called Walker's Church. Thomas Jefferson attended the nearby classical school of the Rev. James Maury, who was rector here and is buried in the churchyard. Jefferson served on the parish vestry from 1767 to 1770. Parishioner Judith Page Walker Rives enlisted William Strickland, one of the nation’s foremost architects, to design a replacement for the old frame church. The Gothic Revival sanctuary, consecrated by Bishop William Meade as Grace Church in 1855, is Strickland’s only known work in Virginia.

Department of Historic Resources, 2017

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Barclay Rives, A History of Grace Church, 2nd ed. (Dexter, Michigan: Thompson-Shore, 2010). “Grace Church,” National Register of Historic Places nomination (1976). Grace Church Vestry Records, 1845-1992 (housed at Grace Church). The Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register, vol. 8 (1855-56). Www.gracekeswick.org Calder Loth, ed., Virginia Landmarks Register, 14. Melinda B. Freierson, “A Study of Five Episcopal Churches in Albemarle County, Virginia,” (Research Paper, University of Virginia School of Architecture, 1983). William Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1857), 2:41-47. Charles Wilder Watts, “Colonial Albemarle: The Social and Economic History of a Piedmont Virginia County 1727-1775,” (M.A. Thesis, University of Virginia, 1948).