Local author Richard Weaver has compiled a history of Christ Church in Lucketts and has donated a copy of his book to the Lovettsville Historical Society & Museum. Anyone with a curiosity about local church history will find this book of much interest.
As Weaver, a parishioner and historian of Christ Church, tells the story in the book’s preface, in the Spring of 2021 – during the Covid epidemic – he learned that the records of Christ Church were stored in the attic of the parish house. He found boxes of yellowed papers marked “Do Not Destroy,” as well Bibles, books, and hymnals from the 19th century.
The first record he found was an entry in an 1869 report by St. James Episcopal Church in Leesburg, stating that land had been secured in the community of Goresville, seven miles north-east of Leesburg, for a church building. By 1870, a church building was erected at that location and was opened for services.
According to other sources cited in Weaver’s book, land for a church was donated much earlier, in 1773, to the vestry of Shelburne Parish, by one Joshua Gore. The land was in a community located on the “Great Road” (also known as the “Carolina Road”) which corresponds to present-day U.S. Route 15.
(When I asked Weaver about the 1773 land grant, and whether a church was erected at that time, he responded: “A church was indeed built after the land grant but nothing remains of it physically. It was known as the ‘Black Swamp’ church and would have been located a little south of the Lucketts intersection. We have no records at all of this congregation, but presumably they were active into the late 1860s when the land where the current church was acquired.”)
Soon after its opening in 1870, Christ Church, together with another rural congregation, obtained the services of the Rev. Sewell Hepbron. Rev. Hepbron is pictured in Weaver’s book holding his young granddaughter Katherine – later known as the actress and film legend Katherine Hepburn.
Interesting from the Lovettsville standpoint, is a statement contained in the first report submitted by Christ Church itself: “A portion of this congregation lives in neighborhood of Lovettsville, a point too far removed from the church for them to be in regular attendants at service.” Rev. Hepbron reported that he preaches to them occasionally on the fifth Sunday, and that Mr. Curtis Grubb, “a zealous lay reader,” reads the services in a neighboring schoolhouse. (This is the first that this writer has heard about an Anglican/Episcopalian community in Lovettsville.)
Using the “parochial reports” (annual reports submitted to the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia), Weaver is able to provide an outline of the history of Christ Church up until 1951. Apparently, church activity dropped off after that, and the church was closed in 1956.
But in 1979, local residents undertook a restoration of the church building. In 1987, Christ Church was reopened as a mission congregation under the supervision of St. James Episcopal Church in Leesburg.
More recently, in 2022-23, it was determined that the roof – which was original to the church – and the interior ceiling were in dire need of repair. The repairs were begun in July 2023, and the church was reopened for worship on March 24 of this year, in the hope that it “will last another 100 years.”
–Edward Spannaus
