the hut and chapel built in 1570 at Ajacan may have resembled early Spanish structures built at San Miguel de Gualdape in 1526 (in what is now Georgia)
Source: Georgia Public Broadcasting, Spain Comes to the Southeast
the hut and chapel built in 1570 at Ajacan may have resembled early Spanish structures built at San Miguel de Gualdape in 1526 (in what is now Georgia)
Source: Georgia Public Broadcasting, Spain Comes to the Southeast
The first documented religious service in what is now Virginia was a Catholic Mass. In 1570, Captain Vicente Gonzalez brought a Spanish ship from Cuba into the Bahia de Santa Maria (Chesapeake Bay) with a cargo of Jesuit missionaries. They were accompanied by a Native American, Paquiquineo, who had been seized by a previous Spanish ship in 1561.
Paquiquineo had been carried to Spain, Mexico, and Cuba. He converted to the Catholic faith and was called Don Luís de Velasco by the Spaniards. Don Luís had managed to get the Spanish to sail him back to his homeland, and was expected to serve as interpreter and fellow missionary to the "pagans" there.
Gonzalez stopped at a bluff on the north side of what is now called the James River, perhaps at the site of Newport News today. A shore party erected an altar in a clearing near a group of pine trees. In the ceremonies the Spanish probably ritually took possession of the land, as well as gave thanks to God for a safe journey.
The Jesuit missionaries were unloaded and walked inland on the Peninsula towards what is now called the York River. They stopped at a site that may have been recommended by Don Luís//Paquiquineo and started the settlement of Ajacan. There the ship's carpenter constructed a two-room hut for shelter and a chapel using lumber and nails brought from Cuba.
Don Luis/Paquiquineo deserted the Jesuits within a week. After getting the Spanish to return him to his homeland after spending nine years under their control in Spain and Mexico, he chose to live within Native American society. The Jesuits failed to convert any of the Native Americans, and in a time of drought struggled to trade for food. The Catholics worshiped in their small chapel until February 4, 1571. On that day Paquiquineo/Don Luis and other Native Americans executed all of the adult Spanish, sparing only one youth who had been brought to serve as an altar boy. After the murders in 1671, the chapel and hut were either burned or gradually decayed away. No evidence has been found yet of the first European church known to have been built in Virginia, a Catholic chapel built by Spanish Jesuits.
Catholics arrived again with the first English colonists in 1607, but their religious faith was a secret. In the 1600's and 1700's, Catholics were not allowed to hold public religious ceremonies in Virginia. England and Spain were rivals, and Anglicans suspected Catholics of being capable of treason.
The Brent family in Stafford County were the only acknowledged Catholics in the Virginia to become prominent during the colonial period. They had to practice their Catholic faith at home, while paying local taxes for the construction and maintenance of Church of England facilities.
One member was elected in the 1670's to the House of Burgesses despite his religion, but the family still faced discrimination and even physical threat in 1689. Right after the Glorious Revolution when King James II was forced off the throne in 1688 for being too Catholic and too supportive of Spain, the Anglican minister of Overwharton Parish in Stafford County questioned the loyalty of the Brents. Parson Waugh agitated for their punishment. The Fitzhugh family had to provide protection for the Brents until the anti-Catholic uproar subsided.
The American Revolution forced "rebel" political leaders in the 13 colonies to permit a variety of faiths to practice their religion in public in order to recruit soldiers and generate support for the war. In Virginia, the Anglican Church was disestablished formally in 1786, ending official government support for a single chosen faith. Catholics started to raise funds for their own brick church in Alexandria in 1788. Construction of the Church of Saint Mary in Alexandria, the first Catholic church in Virginia since 1571, started in 1795.1
The English colonists who landed on the Outer Banks in 1587 must have created a place for worship on Roanoke Island. Settlers of the "lost colony" may have moved north to Hampton Roads, but if so they probably blended into one of the towns of the Chesapeakes. We have no evidence that those colonists were able to establish a new English settlement with a church building in Virginia.
The English colonists who arrived in 1607 held a religious ceremony on April 29 at Cape Henry. That was a brief outdoor event; no structure was built for the Anglican service. George Percy later wrote:2
a cross now commemorates the Anglican service held at Cape Henry on April 29, 1607
Source: J. G. Covey, CapeHenryLights-36
The first Anglican church within the boundaries of modern Virginia was built at Jamestown. Soon after choosing the site for Jamestown in 1607, English settlers stretched a sail between several trees to provide shelter from sun and rain. Colonists probably sat on stumps or rough benches while Rev. Robert Hunt provided Church of England services in the makeshift shade. After the fort's palisades were erected, one of the first structures built inside was probably a wattle-and-daub exterior, post-in-ground structure with timber framing to serve as the church.
Another Anglican "chapel" was built in 1607 at Fort St. George at the Popham Colony, settled by the same investors who funded Jamestown. That settlement on the coast of Maine failed, and the Anglican church was abandoned when the last of the colonists returned to England in 1608.
The first church at Jamestown was replaced soon after a January 1608 fire burned most of the structures inside James Fort. When the "Laws Divine, Moral and Martial" were imposed in 1610, colonists were obliged to assemble twice each Sunday in the church for religious services. John Rolfe married Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) inside the wattle-and-daub church in 1614.
English colonists built a church (identified by a cross on Zuniga map) in 1608 inside the James Fort palisade
Source: Encyclopedia Virginia, Zuniga Chart
In 1617-19, the first wooden church was built at Jamestown. The location required cutting through one of the three original James Fort palisades. Cobblestones were laid in a trench to support wooden posts and timbers that were cut from local trees. The stone foundation still exists and can be viewed by tourists today.
The first brick church at Jamestown was started after Governor John Harvey returned in 1637. Bricks were erected as a shell around the walls of the wooden church, resting on a new foundation. The brick construction was underway in 1639, but the church was still not finished as late as 1647.
The brick church was burned during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. A new brick church was erected upon the foundation of the old one started at the end of the 1630's. Around 1680, an impressive brick tower was added at the entrance. The tower was supported by bricks 34 inches thick at the bottom. Bricks wee about 17 inches thick at the top.
Source: JamestownRediscovery, Archaeology of the Jamestown Church Tower
The brick tower still remains from the late 1600's, but only the foundations remain of the wood and brick churches. After the colonial capital moved to Middle Plantation (Williamsburg) in 1699 and a new church was built three miles away, the Jamestown church was abandoned. Bricks above ground level were "robbed" by local residents to use in other structures.
In preparation for the 300th anniversary of Jamestown, a new memorial church was constructed on the site by the National Society, Colonial Dames of America. Archeological excavations since the 1990's have identified the site of the original 1608 church, including four burials inside. The site of the later wooden and brick churches has been excavated as well, including multiple graves of high-ranking people buried inside those structures.3
A wooden steeple or cap was once placed on top of the sturdy brick tower. Archeology has revealed burnt wooden timbers within the bricks at the top of that tower, indicating a fire destroyed the wooden cap. In the 1890's and 1960's, the top of the tower was reinforced with new bricks and a stucco covering. In 2024, a stainless steel superstructure with glass roof panels was installed on the top of the 1680's brick tower, finally restoring a waterproof cover.4
evidence of the burning of the wooden cap/steeple that was once on top of the Jamestown church tower
Source: JamestownRediscovery, Archaeology of the Jamestown Church Tower
In 1609, John Smith sought to spread the colonists out from Jamestown, reducing the pressure on the limited food supply. He sent people upstream to the Falls of the James and downstream to what is now Fort Monroe, near the Native American town of Kecoughtan. The settlers upstream soon returned to Jamestown. Those who went downstream built Fort Algernon and survived the Starving Time of 1609-10.
There must have been a space for worship during that winter at Fort Algernon, but it may have been a communal hall rather than a building primarily intended for religious services. The first documented church was built in 1610, after the English moved slightly upstream to displace the residents from Kecoughtan and start the city of Hampton.
A post-in-ground earthfast wooden structure was built as Hampton's church in 1610, at the same time the walls were erected for Fort Charles. The Hampton church was rectangular in shape, 57' long by 24' wide, similar to the church built inside the palisade at Jamestown in 1608 after the fire. The rectangular pattern was the "Anglican Plan" used in England until the Great Fire of London in 1666, after which church structures were more square in shape.
The chapel at the 1607-1608 Popham Colony is similar in design to the first church in Hampton. Capt. James Davis had been at Popham and built Fort Algernon next to Kecoughtan in 1609, so he may have influenced the design of early churches in both colonial settlements.
The discovery of the site of the first church at Hampton was announced in 2025. The location, surrounded by Hampton University, is owned by the still-operating St. John's Episcopal Church, and is adjacent to the already-recognized site of the second church built in the city. Archeologists have discovered that both structures were built on brick and river cobble foundations.5
The third Anglican church in Virginia was constructed at Henricus. In 1611 Sir Thomas Dale took a large contingent of the settlers from Jamestown to start a new city. Henricus was located far enough upstream to provide protection against Spanish attack, and to enable the English to assert more control over the territory they were seizing from Powhatan in the first Anglo-Powhatan War.
In 1613 Henricus was enhanced by the construction of fortified houses, a church, and a parsonage for Rev. Alexander Whitaker named Rock Hall. Whitaker sought to convert Native Americans to his Protestant faith. He succeeded in baptizing Pocahontas, probably within the Henricus church, while she was held in captivity after being kidnapped in 1613 and transferred from Jamestown into the custody of Sir Thomas Dale. A college was planned at Henricus to Christianize the pagans and get them to adopt English cultural patterns.
Ralph Hamor wrote about the Henricus church in 1614:6
The grand plans of the Virginia Company collapsed when Henricus was destroyed in the 1622 uprising. The settlers who were not killed quickly retreated to Jamestown. Henricus was never rebuilt, and plans for the university were abandoned as the English pursued a military victory in the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.
The site of Henricus was probably destroyed when the Union Army excavated the Dutch Gap Canal in 1864-65. Chesterfield County has built Henricus Historical Park for recreation and historical interpretation nearby. A cross, erected in 1911 by the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, commemorates the third Anglican church constructed in Virginia.7
the 1611 church at Henricus is memorialized today by two monuments
Source: Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Henrico (Henricus Historical Park)
The General Assembly created counties and Anglican parishes as population grew. Each parish built a church and often "chapels of ease," small buildings on the edges of a parish where worshipers could gather without having to travel to the central church. St. Luke's Historic Church & Museum in Smithfield, in Isle of Wight County, claims to be "Virginia's Oldest Church Building" today. According to local tradition, the brick structure was built in 1632. However, architectural historians suggest the brick exterior, which is the oldest part of the building, dates to 1685-87.8
Multiple Episcopal churches in Tidewater Virginia can date their founding to the 1600's. Each had a structure of some sort, and remnants of the original building may still be a component of more-modern structures.
For example, construction of the St. Mary’s Whitechapel church in Lancaster County started prior to 1669; the building was completed around 1675. It was converted into a brick church in 1740-41 and later rebuilt. Some of the original material may have been incorporated into the structure which is used today for worship services.9