Merchant's Hope Church

About this property

Merchant's Hope was the name of a plantation and church established in the Virginia Colony in the 17th century. It was also the name of an English sailing ship, Merchant's Hope, which plied the Atlantic bringing emigrants to Virginia in the early 17th-century. The Merchant's Hope was owned by a man named William Barker who was a wealthy English merchant and mariner who patented land in Virginia. Merchant's Hope Plantation was located west of Flowerdew Hundred on the south shore of the James River near the mouth of Powell's Creek in a portion of Charles City County which was divided to form Prince George County in 1703. It was located on the former site of Powellbrooke Plantation, whose owner Captain Nathaniel Powell (one of the original 1607 colonists), his wife, and ten others were killed during the Indian massacre of 1622. Merchant's Hope Plantation was patented in 1638 by William Barker, Richard Quiney, and John Sadler, merchants of London. Ownership of the plantation passed to Nathaniel Harrison in 1720. The 4,200 acre (17 km2) James River National Wildlife Refuge now encompasses much of the land that was Merchant's Hope Plantation during the 17th century. Merchants Hope Church was established in 1657, and the current sanctuary was completed in 1743. Even though the church has undergone renovation and restoration, it is virtually the same structure today as it was when it was built over 250 years ago. In the 21st century, members of Merchant's Hope Episcopal Church still meet in the mid-18th-century structure, which is among the oldest Protestant churches in America still used as a house of worship. The church is listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. The church has long been dated by local tradition and a date reputedly carved on one of the roof trusses to 1657, Upton ascribes a date of circa 1725, but recent dendrochronological studies of the roof truss timbers showed that they date to circa 1743. 1618: Martin's Brandon Parish was originally a plantation parish that derived its name from nearby Brandon Plantation. It was united with Prince George's Parish at that time. 1639-1640: The church's "Great Bible" was published in London There is indirect evidence of an active parish and, therefore some kind of church edifice, in 1665 and 1675. 1676: Nathaniel Bacon of Henrico and many other outraged settlers met at Merchant's Hope Church where they signed petitions to Governor Sir William Berkeley demanding help against attacks by the Native Americans. Berkeley who was engaged in the fur trade with the Native Americans dismissed their petitions leaving Bacon and 211 volunteers to take matters into their own hands which resulted in Bacon's Rebellion.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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