More on Church & Cemetery

April found the following quotation last year pertaining to an Episcopal Church and cemetery at Port Tobacco and put it on the Port Tobacco page of our website: www.gibbarchaeology.org:


"Port Tobacco contains about eighty houses; most of which are of wood, and very poor. There is a large English episcopalian church on the border of the town, built of stone, which formerly was an ornament to the place, but is now entirely out of repair; the windows are all broken, and the road is carried through the church-yard, over the graves, the paling that surrounded it having been torn down"(Weld 1807: 137-138).

Isaac Weld recorded this observation while traveling through town in 1797. The "English episcopalian church" to which he refers was the Anglican church that may have been built in 1708/9, but more likely is a replacement of that edifice. We haven't tracked down the history of the church. Weld tells us that the road, likely that leading south toward Warehouse Point, cut through the cemetery which had been enclosed with a paling (a fence erected in a ditch). If memory serves, we have another reference, possibly earlier, noting the stacking of gravestones against the church.

More late-breaking news as it becomes available. We'll be blogging later this week on some of the information on the jailhouse that Elsie has unearthed.

Jim

Source: Weld, I. (1807). Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada During the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797. London, John Stockdale.

Note: There is a lot more about the churches of Port Tobacco contained in a previous blog post.