Blandford Church | |
Location | 319 S. Crater Rd., Petersburg, Virginia |
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Coordinates | 37°13′33″N77°23′16″W / 37.22583°N 77.38778°W |
Area | 9 acres (3.6 ha) |
Built | 1736 |
NRHP reference No. | 72001513 [1] |
VLR No. | 123-0039 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | May 31, 1972 |
Designated VLR | April 18, 1972 [2] |
The Blandford Church is the oldest building in Petersburg, Virginia whose history is well documented. It is at the highest point in the city, atop Well's Hill. It is today (2019) part of a memorial to Southern soldiers who died during the Civil War. [3] It is adjacent to Blandford Cemetery, one of the oldest, largest and historically significant cemeteries in Virginia. The Blandford Cemetery did not exist until after the church building had been abandoned, in the early 1800s, and the land purchased by the city to use as a cemetery.
The Blandford Church, also known as St. Paul's Church or simply "The Brick Church", was erected in 1736 on Well's Hill, the highest point in Petersburg. In 1781, during the American Revolution, the Battle of Blandford, also known as the Battle of Petersburg, was fought nearby. Following the battle Major General William Phillips was ordered back to Petersburg to meet Lord Cornwallis who was moving north From Wilmington, North Carolina. While in Petersburg awaiting the arrival of Cornwallis, Phillips fell ill and died on 13 May 1781. He was secretly buried somewhere in the churchyard.
The church building was abandoned in 1806 after the construction of another Episcopal church in Petersburg when the Town of Blandford in Prince George County was absorbed by Petersburg. It became "an ivy-clad picturesque shell." [3]
During the Civil War the church served as a major telegraph station. It was used as a field hospital, most notably after the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864.
Necessary repairs for its preservation were made by the City of Petersburg in 1882. [4] A Ladies' Memorial Association of Petersburg was founded in 1866 and took on preserving the former church as a memorial to the large number of Confederate soldiers buried in the adjacent cemetery. (Some 30,000 were buried unidentified in mass graves.) It is one of the oldest non-religious women's organizations in the country. Between 1889 and 1905, the Ladies Memorial Association paid for a pulpit and 34 pews. The windows were restored temporarilily with clear glass.
The Ladies Memorial Association requested from the eleven Confederate states, plus the slave states of Maryland and Missouri, funds to commission stained-glass windows. (Only Kentucky declined.) Between 1904 and 1912, windows were created and installed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Each of the large windows contains the image of a Saint, and symbols associated with that Saint. In addition to the thirteen state windows, Tiffany donated one, as did the Ladies Memorial Association.
The stained glass half-round window over the church door contains the name Ladies Memorial Association of Petersburgh, VA, the dates 1866–1909, and in the center, the only Confederate flag Tiffany is known to have made, together with the dates 1861—1865. As the city's Web site puts it, it is a shrine to its 'Lost Cause.'" [5] [6]
At their meeting on November 18, 1900, the Ladies' Memorial Association decided to ask permission to make "Old Blandford Church" into a "mortuary and memorial chapel. " [7] Fifteen windows were installed between 1904 and 1912. Most display a state seal, the figure of a saint, and an inscription. Eleven were donated by each of the former Confederate states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Two were donated by Missouri and Maryland. Kentucky, another border state, was the only state that refused to participate. In addition, there is a window of a Christian cross of jewels donated by Louis Comfort Tiffany. [8] [9]
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. [1]
Petersburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,458 with a majority black American. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines Petersburg with Dinwiddie County for statistical purposes. The city is 21 miles (34 km) south of the commonwealth (state) capital city of Richmond.
An old soldiers' home is a military veterans' retirement home, nursing home, or hospital, or sometimes an institution for the care of the widows and orphans of a nation's soldiers, sailors, and marines, etc.
Hollywood Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 412 South Cherry Street in the Oregon Hill neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. It was established in 1847 and designed by the landscape architect John Notman. It is 135-acres in size and overlooks the James River. It is one of three places in the United States that contains the burials of two U.S. Presidents, the others being Arlington National Cemetery and United First Parish Church.
William Mahone was a Confederate States Army General, civil engineer, railroad executive, prominent Virginia Readjuster and ardent supporter of former slaves.
Blandford Cemetery is a historic cemetery located in Petersburg, Virginia. Although in recent years it has attained some notoriety for its large collection of more than 30,000 Confederate graves, it contains remains of people of all classes and races as well as veterans of every American war. It holds the largest mass grave of 30,000 Confederates killed in the Siege of Petersburg (1864–65) and other battles during the American Civil War. Although only 3,700 names of the interred are known, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992, in part through the efforts of Charlotte Irving, first president of the Historic Blandford Cemetery Foundation. In addition to this cemetery's historic African American section discussed below, it is located adjacent to the People's Memorial Cemetery, a historic African-American cemetery, and small cemeteries containing additional dead from the lengthy Siege of Petersburg and Battle of the Crater in 1864.
Nora Fontaine Maury Davidson was an American schoolteacher in Petersburg, Virginia. She is credited for holding the first Memorial Day ceremony in Petersburg, and as the inspiration for the United States' Memorial Day.
Confederate Memorial Hall Museum is a museum located in New Orleans which contains historical artifacts related to the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) and the American Civil War. It is historically also known as "Memorial Hall". It houses the second-largest collection of Confederate Civil War items in the world, behind the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia. The museum has been advertised as Louisiana's Civil War Museum and as Louisiana's Oldest Museum.
Christ Episcopal Church may refer to the following similarly named churches or parishes in the United States:
The Confederate Memorial State Historic Site is a state-owned property occupying approximately 135 acres (55 ha) near Higginsville, Missouri. From 1891 to 1950, the site was used as an old soldiers' home for veterans of the Confederate States Army after the American Civil War. The Missouri state government then took over operation of the site after the last veteran died in 1950, using it as a state park. In 1981, a cottage, a chapel, and the Confederate cemetery were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Confederate Chapel, Cemetery and Cottage. The chapel was moved from its original position in 1913, but was returned in 1978. It has a tower and a stained glass window. The cottage is a small wooden building, and the cemetery contains 723 graves. Within the cemetery is a monument erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy which is modeled on the Lion of Lucerne. In addition to the cemetery and historic structures, the grounds also contain trails, picnic sites, and fishing ponds.
Tiffany glass refers to the many and varied types of glass developed and produced from 1878 to 1929-1930 at the Tiffany Studios in New York City, by Louis Comfort Tiffany and a team of other designers, including Clara Driscoll, Agnes F. Northrop, and Frederick Wilson.
The Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist or La Cathédrale St-Jean, originally called l'Église St-Jean du Vermilion, is the cathedral and mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana. It was the first parish in Lafayette Parish—founded in 1821—and was designated cathedral upon the erection of the diocese in 1918.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
Marietta Confederate Cemetery is a large Confederate cemetery located in Marietta, Georgia, adjacent to the larger Marietta City Cemetery.
The Confederate Monument in Portsmouth, Virginia, was built between 1876 and 1881. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1997.
Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church is a historic Episcopal church that was founded in 1824 by Nicholas Hamner Cobbs and is located at Forest, Bedford County, Virginia. The Church sits on a historical plot which was originally owned by former president Thomas Jefferson. Saint Stephens was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
A Ladies' Memorial Association (LMA) is a type of organization for women that sprang up all over the American South in the years after the American Civil War. Typically, these were organizations by and for women, whose goal was to raise monuments in Confederate soldiers honor. Their immediate goal, of providing decent burial for soldiers, was joined with the desire to commemorate the sacrifices of Southerners and to propagate the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Between 1865 and 1900, these associations were a formidable force in Southern culture, establishing cemeteries and raising large monuments often in very conspicuous places, and helped unite white Southerners in an ideology at once therapeutic and political.
The history of Petersburg, Virginia, United States as a modern settlement begins in the 17th century when it was first settled. The city was incorporated in 1748. It was occupied by the British during the American Revolutionary War, and Major-General William Phillips died of fever at Blandford during bombardment from the Marquis de Lafayette's positions north of the river. After the war, it became a destination for many free blacks in Virginia, as well as a growing hub for railroads. By 1860, it was the second largest city in Virginia. For nine months in 1864 and 1865 it was the subject of the Siege of Petersburg; the fall of the city unleashed a chain of events over the following two weeks that resulted in the end of the American Civil War. After the war, it again flourished as a destination for Freedmen. Petersburg was a notable focal point in the organization of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century. In the late 20th century, the city suffered significant economic decline.
The Civil War Trust's Civil War Discovery Trail is a heritage tourism program that links more than 600 U.S. Civil War sites in more than 30 states. The program is one of the White House Millennium Council's sixteen flagship National Millennium Trails. Sites on the trail include battlefields, museums, historic sites, forts and cemeteries.