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March/April 2003

Questions

This drawing is the oldest extant sketch we have of Christ Church. When and where (what publication) did it first appear?

Answers

This sketch of Christ Church was made sometime before 1857, the year it appeared in Bishop William Meade’s Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia.

It is difficult to say exactly when this drawing was made, for Meade had begun to document Virginia’s colonial parish churches for several decades before he published Old Churches. Indeed, Meade had visited Christ Church many times before 1857, most notably in 1837, when he compiled a detailed report on the building. Meade presented this report to the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia held in May 1838 in Winchester. When he published Old Churches, Meade reprinted his report from 1838 and added several discussions of major events in Christ Church’s history. It is possible, then, Meade had the drawing made much earlier than 1857.

Archivist Julia Randle of the Virginia Theological Seminary relates that while many of the drawings in Old Churches included notations which may suggest a possible artist, the drawing of Christ Church had no such notation. What is important, however, is that Meade’s Old Churches contains the earliest known sketch we have of Christ Church, pointing again to his role as one of the leading nineteenth-century observers of Virginia’s Anglican Church.