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Two of Virginia's Oldest Church Buildings Lxxiii: Peter

HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE CAVALIERS 321 A building that is similar and yet in many respects quite different is in New Kent County, about as far above Williamsburg as Smithfield is below that university town. This is St. Peter's Church. It is thought that the parish dates from 1654, though the present building was not begun until 1701. The minute which tells of the first plan for the structure is dated August 13, 1700: "Whereas, the Lower Church of this Parish is very much out of Repair and Standeth very inconvenient for most of the inhabitants of the said parish; Therefore ordered that as soon as conveniently may be a new Church of Brick Sixty feet long and twenty fower feet wide in the clear and fourteen feet pitch with a Gallery Sixteen feet long be built and Erected upon the Main Roade, by the School House near Thomas Jackson's; and the Clerk is ordered to give a copy of this order to Capt. Nich. Merewether who is Requested to show the same to Will Hughes and desire him to draw a Draft of said Church and to bee at the next vestry." The cost of the new church was one hundred and forty-six thousand pounds of tobacco. This included the main building only, for the belfry was not built until 1722.

Rev. David Mossom, who was rector of the church from 1727 to 1767, was the minister who married General Washington, at the White House, as the home of his bride was called, a few miles from St. Peter's Church. The story is told of this eccentric minister that on one occasion, having quarrelled with his clerk, he rebuked him from the pulpit. The latter avenged himself by giving out to the congregation the psalm in which were these lines: "With restless and ungovern'd rage Why do the heathen storm?

Why in such rash attempts engage As they can ne'er perform?” The epitaph on the tomb of Mr. Mossom in St. Peter's churchyard states that he was the first native American admitted to the office of Presbyter in the Church of England.

LXXIII MONTICELLO, NEAR CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA THE HOME OF THOMAS JEFFERSON "Oh, my young master, they were all burnt, but ah! we saved your fiddle!"