Assawaman Church of England

WY-109

Fifty yards north on the hilltop stood Assawaman Church of the Anglican Accomack Parish, formed in 1663. The brick sanctuary was built after 1680 on land donated by William Taylor, a native of England who had settled on the Eastern Shore by 1637. Francis Makemie, a founder of American Presbyterianism, owned a gristmill on the adjoining lot. After the Church of England was disestablished following the Revolutionary War, Assawaman Church closed early in the 19th century and was used as a schoolhouse. A communion chalice from 1749-1750 inscribed “For the use of the Parish Church of Accomack at Assuaman” is in the care of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in nearby Jenkins Bridge.

Department of Historic Resources, 2020

See a problem? Report it to HighwayMarkers@dhr.virginia.gov.

DHR could use your help! We don't have a recent image of this marker. If you have one that you'd like to submit for inclusion on this site, please send it to HighwayMarkers@dhr.virginia.gov.

References/Bibliographic Citation:

Susie M. Ames, Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century (Richmond: Dietz Press, 1940). Ralph T. Whitelaw, Virginia’s Eastern Shore: A History of Northampton and Accomack Counties (Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1951). Nora Miller Turman, “The Eastern Shore of Virginia, 1603-1964,” The Eastern Shore News, 1964. “Virginia Gleanings in England,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 15, no. 3 (Jan. 1908): 297-306. E. Alfred Jones, The Old Silver of American Churches (Letchworth, England, 1913), 168-169. George Carrington Mason, “The Colonial Churches of the Eastern Shore of Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 4 (Oct. 1940), 449-474. William Stevens Perry, ed., Historical Collections of the American Colonial Church, vol. 1: Virginia, (Hartford, CT: Church Press Company, 1870), 300-302.