Historic Christ Church-Chase Pew

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Chase Pew

This view from the gallery shows the Chase and Carter pews at the east end of the crossing near the chancel. The Allen organ, which was installed in 1974, is visible in the center of the Chase pew with a tan covering.

The two largest pews in Christ Church are located in the east end at the crossing. On the north side stands the Carter pew. Directly across, or south of it, is the Chase pew. The pew is named for the Chase family, who led preservation efforts on the church in the late nineteenth century. The founders of the family here in Christ Church Parish were Peter and Anne Chase. Originally from Newport, Rhode Island, they had settled in Lancaster County by 1825, acquiring land on Carter’s Creek. Their gravesites are located in the southwest quadrant of the churchyard.

Their son William Tell Chase was elected to the vestry of Christ Church Parish in 1867 and served that body until his death in January of 1894. Chase was a captain in the Confederate army, where he was wounded in the Peninsula Campaign and at Gettysburg. As a vestryman, Captain Chase, as he was often called, served as treasurer and senior warden.

After the war, Chase, along with his wife and other family members, worked tirelessly to preserve the church building and support Christ Church Parish. He served as a lay delegate to annual conventions of the Episcopal Church, and his wife helped organize the Ladies Protestant Episcopal Aid Society, a group of vestrymen’s wives and other ladies in the parish who raised funds for the rectory and various church projects. Chase protected the communion silver and the broken font by hiding them in his house and at Grace Episcopal in Kilmarnock. He also donated to the parish two tracts of land surrounding the church, building on one of them a small house for a caretaker who could watch over the building. His efforts inspired the vestry to undertake several major preservation projects in the years following his death. Chase’s descendants supported Christ Church throughout the twentieth century and have continued to have an active interest in the building and its preservation into the present day.

Christ Church's font stands just east of the Chase pew, seen here from the altarpiece. The cross and hymnal board are modern elements that never would have appeared in a parish church in colonial Virginia.

The Chase pew has one of just two electrical outlets in the church, in this case used to support an Allen organ installed there in 1974 which replaced a Baldwin organ from 1956. A small brass plaque on the door leading into the pew is marked "Chase Pew."