Norfolk Tour

MAMAMAMAMATTHEW JONES HOUSETTHEW JONES HOUSETTHEW JONES HOUSETTHEW JONES HOUSETTHEW JONES HOUSEc. 1720, 1727, 1729-30, 1892-93, conserved 1992-93Newport News

Although compromised by alterations over thepast century, the Matthew Jones House prov-ides a rare glimpse into the changing social

ambitions of the Virginia gentry and is an extraordi-nary example of an all-but-lost building tradition—theearthfast house. As initially constructed about 1720,it was a frame dwelling whose major structural postsextended into the ground—there were no foundations.The present two chimneys were also built at this time,with the room to the northwest (the hall) having had alarge cooking fireplace. The only other room was theprincipal chamber, doublingfor private dining by thefamily when not entertainingin the hall. The front entry orporch tower, the stair pas-sage, and rear shed had notbeen built.

Jones appears to haveconstructed this house as anexpedient to a more lavishresidence. Soon he erected abrick kitchen, making thelarge fireplace in the hallunnecessary. The serviceactivities of the hall weremoved to other spaces, thesize of the fireplace wasreduced, and this room wasrelegated solely for enter-tainment. Jones commemo-rated the building of hiskitchen by inscribing bricksthat read “Matthew Jones1727.” These bricks were

Above: date bricks from a kitchen erected near the mainhouse and torn down in 1892. Bricks from that structurewere reused to raise the main house to two stories. Below:gable-end elevation of the Matthew Jones House. Thechimney is original to the earthfast period, including thedouble stacks. The bricking of the walls and the porch towerdate to 1729; before the addition of the second floor, thebrickwork of the porch tower sat on the roof framing whereit extended beyond the plane of the main walls. The sheddates to 1729. Measured by Willie Graham, Mark R. Wenger,and Jeffery Bostetter. Drawn by Willie Graham.

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throughout. Despite the stripping of early framingmembers and finishes, enough evidence remains torecreate a fairly complete portrait of how this houseinitially looked and how it was transformed over time.WJG

reused and set into the front wall of the house when itwas raised to two stories.

Jones died before completing his renovation plansand it was left to his son and son’s guardian to finishthe work. Beginning in 1729 and probably completedthe following summer (the date based on dendro-chronolgy by Herman J. Heikkenen), the walls of thehouse were bricked, the front porch tower was con-structed, and the rear shed was built. The new housenow contained all the requisite spaces necessary forgenteel living during the second quarter of the eigh-teenth century. The porch tower provided controlledentry to the house, the hall was retained as the princi-pal entertaining room, and the chamber became thedining room. Although the bed likely remained in thedining room at this time, the shed sufficed either foradditional sleeping space, or at least as a storage areafor the owner’s personal belongings. The house stayedin this state, little altered, until late in the nineteenthcentury.

In the fall of 1892 and continuing the following year,the house was again modernized. With a new-foundappreciation for the colonial past, it was deemedworthy to save at least the brick shell of the house.That—and little else—remains from the early struc-ture. The kitchen was razed and its salvaged brickswere used to raise the house to two stories. Thebedrooms on the upper floor were now of a moremodern and comfortable size. A stair passage wascreated, and new trim and plaster were installed

Left: reconstructed framing elevation of the Mat-thew Jones House in its first-period state. Virtuallyall aspects of the framing can be deduced from thescant remaining first-period timbers. A casementwindow was located in the left bay; however, theright casement is conjectural. Drawing by WillieGraham. Below: first-floor plan. Walls of theoriginal earthfast structure were bricked in 1729.The porch tower and rear shed were added at thistime. Walls shown without poché date to the 1892remodeling. Measured and drawn by Willie Gra-h a m .

A :B:C :D:E:F:

Replacement cellar entrance.Period II door location.Original stair location.Period II window opening.Location of original casement window.Original wall location that divided hallfrom the chamber.

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LLLLLYNNHAYNNHAYNNHAYNNHAYNNHAVEN HOUSEVEN HOUSEVEN HOUSEVEN HOUSEVEN HOUSE1724-25, restoration completed 1975Virginia Beach

The Lynnhaven house is significant for theconstellation of early features it preserves.Dendrochronology done by Dr. Herman J.

Heikkenen suggests that it was built in 1724-25. Thisdate is reflected in the English-bond brickwork of theexterior, the exposed eaves with a tilted false plate,and two massive chimneys. Turned lead, indicatingleaded casement windows, was recovered in archaeo-logical excavations undertaken by the APVA. Thewindows now existing were installed on the basis ofthis finding. The spacing of exposed rafter endsdemonstrates that the house always had dormers.

At the rear, the early cellar entrance remains intact.This served a partial cellar, another earmark of theearliest houses in this area, the Matthew Jones Housebeing another example. Cellars were not unknown inthe first decades of the eighteenth century, but theirincidence increased significantly during the secondquarter when this space became desirable for special-ized storage. The addition of usable space tended toelevate the first floor of the house, producing a moreimposing aspect. The trend was also associated with

the growing importance of gentility in the openingdecades of the century.

Inside, additional early features are apparent. Clearly,the broad, exposed ceiling joists, adorned with ogeemoldings, were originally visible as were the floor-boards above, which were thus planed smooth ontheir bottom faces. Chalked numbers, applied at thetime of construction, are still visible on the undersideof flooring near the stair. The closed-stringer stair isoriginal and preserves one the few instances of earlysymmetrical balusters in Virginia. (Other examplesinclude the Mason House in Accomack County andLinden Farm, in Richmond County). In this earlymanner, the treads of the stair are molded with ascotia and fillet. The treads are secured at the ends byclasp nails driven through the stringer. Vertical

Top left: Lynnhaven House. Photograph by Willie Graham,1986. Bottom: first-floor plan of the Lynnhaven House. Therear wing—of unknown depth—was an original feature of thehouse, but was later destroyed. Drawing by Willie Grahamafter Mark R. Wenger and HABS.

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Stair in the hall of Lynnhaven House and adetail of its balustrade. The balusters werefirst riven before being planed square and

turned on a lathe. Few symmetricalbalusters survive from this region.

Photographs by Willie Graham, 1986.

sheathing adorned with molded battens, all appliedwith very small rose-head nails, encloses the spacebelow this raking member.

Lynnhaven House is laid out on what would at firstappear to be a two-room, hall-and-parlor, or hall-and-chamber, plan. However, racking on the rear wallleaves no doubt that there was a wing, as well. (Ar-chaeology failed to define the depth of this space.)Perhaps it was a service room intended to embracethe cellar entry. More likely, it was an instance of theback room frequently mentioned in inventories of theperiod. This space often assumed the character of amale area, or that of a chamber, as the parlor in frontof it was increasingly given over to meals and othersocial activity. Indeed, the original plan of LynnhavenHouse illustrates the process by which dining roomsemerged from parlors during the second quarter ofthe eighteenth century.

The public significance of the parlor is emphasized inthe extent of its fireplace—larger than that in theouter room—and in the bolection-moldedchimneypiece that once adorned it. (See the HABSinventory, 1934.) On the other hand, the gable-enddoor to the exterior, probably an access to theservice yard, preserves a notion of the parlor as achamber for the mistress and thus as a center ofhousehold administration.

Of course, the most public space, the hall, was pre-imminent in regards to finish. Unlike the parlor, theexposed joists are molded and the walls are adornedwith a beaded base and chair board. Here too standsthe stair, the most remarkable and flamboyant pieceof woodwork in the house. As such, it underscoresthe public character and logistical importance of thehall or “outward room.”

The upper floor was divided by a central passage,creating two chambers of nearly equal size. Theexisting partitions are not original, but were recon-structed in the approximate locations of the origi-nals. Additional features associated with earlyeighteenth-century construction in this region areevident upstairs: the bolection chimneypiece, theabsence of baseboards, and planed ceiling boards laidon top of exposed and carefully finished collars. Alsoremarkable is the shallow depth of the hearths, aconsequence of allowing the joist nearest the gable tospan the lower room without interruption.

In 1971 the house was given to the APVA, restored in1975, and opened to the public. MRW

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PLEPLEPLEPLEPLEASASASASASANT HALLANT HALLANT HALLANT HALLANT HALL1779Virginia Beach

The situation of thishouse adjoining amain road would

have been quite unusualfor the seat of a largeproperty. More oftenbuildings sited in thismanner served astaverns. Whatever itsoriginal use, the plan ofthis structure reflectedlong-established pat-terns of domestic andpublic use, having acentral passage with thetwo best rooms frontingthe road. In a domesticcontext the principalroom to the left of theentry could have beenvariously referred to bythis time as the hall,parlor, or drawing room. On the right would havebeen the dining room and behind it the chamber, theprincipal sleeping space long associated with themistress of the household. The chamber and diningroom usually enjoyed direct communication in theeighteenth century, as was probably the case here.(The present doorway is a mid-nineteenth-centuryalteration, undertaken to recreate this side of thehouse as a double parlor.)

Across the passage, Corinthian pilasters adorning thebreast of the chimney leave no doubt of the room’spublic importance. In this context, the “buffet” orcupboard emerges as something more than a place ofstorage. Often painted on the interior with bright, eye-catching colors, beautifully wrought cupboardsserved to focus attention on those “precious stores ofthe table” that validated the owner’s claim to a highposition in the social order. To the rear, sequesteredbehind the stair, is a small, simply appointed roomthat could have served any of a number of purposes:chamber, housekeeper’s room, study, little parlor,nursery, etc. Above stairs were additional sleeping

spaces, generally denominated according to thespaces below—hall chamber or dining room chamber,for example. Like the little room below stairs, theseupper chambers are simply and comparably finishedin keeping with their situation away from the publiceye.

Several prominent features suggest a pre-Revolution-ary date for the construction of this house—thevirtuoso Corinthian orders in the best room, therobust character of the main doors and their trim, andthe massive details of the stair. Yet the sawn carriagesof the stair—clearly original—the plain brickwork ofthe exterior, and the details of trim for other door-ways all argue for construction at a later time. A datedbrick bearing the inscription, “1779/April” at the leftspring of the arch that spans one cellar windowestablishes the house as a transitional design.

The house has undergone many alterations. In thedining room, the opening to the right of the fireplace

Pleasant Hall. Photograph by William Graham, Jr., 2002.

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has been enlarged, possibly in the neoclassical periodwhen the present shelf was added to the chimneybreast. In the chamber, an alcove to the right of thechimney is likewise a product of extensive alterations.The opening in the paneling of the fireplace wall hasbeen enlarged and the panel above the doorwayappears to be a mid-nineteenth-century insertion. Asmentioned earlier, the present doorway between thedining room and chamber probably dates to this sameperiod.

In the passage, the stair and the arched opening areboth original features, as is the unusual reverse splayof the main doorways. Below this stair is evidence thatan early one descended to the cellar. In the attic is aseries of unusual trusses, having butt purlins overwhich the common rafters are notched—an atypicaldetail. The upper and lower chords are pinned to-gether at the eaves with the lower member bird-mouthed over the plate. This too is unusual, suggest-ing that the carpenter trained elsewhere.

Outside, the walls are laid in Flemish bond withrubbed arches and ogee water table on the frontfaçade only. Neither the string course nor the returnsare rubbed, though the springs of the cellar windowarches are. (The arches over these openings may havebeen rebuilt, as brickwork around the doorwaycertainly has been.) On the sides and rear, a simplerowlock course forms the top of each window open-ing. A shallow-pitched gable roof covers the struc-

ture. The general lack of refinement and articulationin this brickwork, as compared with that of many pre-Revolutionary structures, seems indicative of arelatively late construction date. Like the roof trusses,the broad slab stacks, characteristic of houses in theAnnapolis area, reflect strong, extra-local influence.

Oddly, first- and second-floor window frames aredetailed differently, the single architraves and flushsills above contrasting with double architraves andmolded sills below. From the interior, all of this workappears to be contemporary. The steps cover the

cellar windows in a man-ner suggestive of analteration. Indications offormer porches and wingsare visible in the front,right, and rear elevations.MRW

Left: roof truss of PleasantHall. The combination ofrestricting the king post toabove the collar and the long,angled struts is unusual forVirginia. Photograph by WillieGraham, 1987. Above: first-floor-plan of Pleasant Hall.Measured by Mark R.Wenger, drawn by CarlLounsbury.

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MOSES MYERS HOUSEMOSES MYERS HOUSEMOSES MYERS HOUSEMOSES MYERS HOUSEMOSES MYERS HOUSEc. 1797, 1818, 1906, restored 1960sNorfolk

It is likely that construction of the Moses Myershouse was first completed shortly before 1797, atwhich date an insurance policy offers the first

clear evidence of the dwelling’s existence. The houseis an early adaptation of the side-passage plan to acorner lot, presenting two adjacent fronts to inter-secting streets—the primary side facing Bank Street,the lesser facing Freemason. A pair of chimneys stoodat the rear of this house to which a kitchen and cov-ered way were added sometime before 1818. Prior tothat time, the kitchen was in the cellar. Beyond theadded service wing, a large garden occupied the rearof the property. Beside the house adjoining BankStreet was a yard of undetermined character to whichfamily and servants gained access by exiting thepassage below the stair landing.

By 1818, insurance records indicate that Moses Myershad completed a new dining-room wing runningbackward from the house along Freemason Street.This new construction extended the frontage ofMyer’s already imposing house and provided forconcealment of the existing service wing. The polygo-nal end of the new wing afforded views of the garden,and less conveniently, of what may have been aservice yard behind the kitchen. The area trappedbetween the service and dining areas became animportant circulation route on the second floor.

About 1906 certain changes were made to the houseseemingly in anticipation of the Jamestown Tercen-tennial Exposition held at what is now the UnitedStates Naval Base in Norfolk. Most visible among thesealterations and additions were the porticos now facingthe two streets. By the 1960s, Moses Myers’ dwellingbelonged to the Chrysler Museum and was restoredunder the direction of local architect Finley Ferguson,Jr. Ferguson’s changes are most evident in the area ofthe covered way, which, along with the tier of spacesagainst the back of the dining room, was rebuilt toprovide a modern kitchen, rest rooms, and a new backstair. These changes completely revised the circula-tion scheme within the service areas. MRW

Above: first-floor plan of the Myers House. Measured byMark R. Wenger, drawn by Carl Lounsbury. Left: photo-graph of the Myers House by William Graham, Jr., 2002.

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TTTTTAAAAAYLYLYLYLYLOR-WHITTLE HOUSEOR-WHITTLE HOUSEOR-WHITTLE HOUSEOR-WHITTLE HOUSEOR-WHITTLE HOUSE1790sNorfolk

This fine dwelling appears to have been builtabout the same time as the Moses Myers House.Like Myers’ dwelling, it stood on a corner lot so

that special emphasis was again accorded the adjacentfacades that fronted the adjoining streets—superiorbonding for the masonry walls and stone enrichmentsfor the windows.

Despite outward similarities, the two houses differsignificantly in their internal arrangement. The stair ofthe Whittle House rises not from a spacious passage,but from a relatively small entry situated at the front

corner of the building. This allowed for the creation ofan additional living space behind, which may haveserved as a ground-floor chamber, judging from thesimplicity of its architectural finish. Logistically, it isthe hub of the ground floor. From here, the occupantoriginally enjoyed direct access to the larger backroom, to the stair passage via the door at the landing,and to the cellar stair through what is now the closet.Many Virginians had moved all chambers to the upperfloor by the time this house was built, especially inTaylor-Whittle House. Photograph by William Graham, Jr.,2002.

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urban situations. Remembering that the chamber wasclosely associated with the mistress, it is likely thatMrs. Whittle continued to administer the affairs of herhousehold from here, thus ignoring more moderntrends.

If this dwelling otherwise followed the usual pattern ofuse, the front room served as a parlor—the room ofreception. The function of the room behind it is lessclear. If the space was not originally subdivided, italmost certainly was used as the dining space, as wasoften the case in more sophisticated town dwellings.However, there is evidence on the rear wall of anearly, front-to-back-partition that once formed apassage from the front room to the original rear door,the latter identified by what was once an exteriorstone sill. This passage took a large chunk out of theback room and thus made it unsuitable for dining. It isimportant to know, then, whether this partition wasoriginal. Evidence on the rear wall favors this conclu-sion; however, no evidence whatever is visibleon the front wall.

If we assume for a moment that the space wasdevoted to formal dining, then the front roomupstairs, the most elaborate of all, surely servedas the drawing room. Again, this was typical ofhigh-end urban dwellings at the beginning of thenineteenth century. Judging from archedopenings that flank the chimney, the spacebehind must have served as a sitting room thatcould on public occasions be thrown togetherwith the front space—somewhat in the manner ofa double parlor. Indeed, similar pairs of archedopenings linked the ground-floor public roomsat Berkeley, in Charles City County, an earlynineteenth-century alteration to this eigh-teenth-century house. Both arches at the WhittleHouse appear to be early; so too is that leadingto the stair. Together, these arches define aprocession of public space, beginning at thefront steps of the house and terminating in therear second-floor room.

The appointments of this space further supportthe supposition of a rear sitting room here. Inthe decorative hierarchy of the house, it is fullyequivalent to the back room below—only thetwo front rooms were appointed more lavishly.Granted this use of the room behind the drawingroom, the remaining space would surely havefunctioned as another chamber, possibly thatset aside for the use of Mr. Whittle.

The house has sustained other significant alterations.The rear window in the upper chamber was convertedin later years to a door, thus providing access to arear service wing. When the present service wing wasadded, perhaps at the end of the nineteenth century,direct communication between this wing and ground-floor chamber was achieved by similar means—anoriginal window was made into a doorway.

During the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century,probably contemporary with construction of theservice wing, a large verandah was attached to theeastern side of the house to which access was pro-vided by positioning jib doors under the sash of theexisting windows. Elsewhere the main stair wasextensively modified in concert with revisions to theplan of the third floor. MRW

First-floor plan of the Taylor-Whittle House. Measured byMark R. Wenger; drawn by Carl Lounsbury.

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Construction of Freemason Street Baptist Churchbegan with the laying of the corner stone in1848 and concluded with the ceremony of

dedication on May 30, 1850. The architect wasThomas U. Walter of Philadelphia who alsoprovided designs for the Norfolk City Hall(now the MacArthur Memorial). Morespaces for Sunday school and administra-tive functions were added in 1895, 1915,and 1957. An exterior restoration wascompleted in 1997.

The elevated main floor allows for an amplyproportioned, well-lighted basement below.Except for the supporting clustered cast-iron columns, this space is wholly unob-structed and almost certainly accommo-dated the Sunday school. During the late1820s and early 1830s, the Sunday schoolmovement had transformed the spatialformulation of church buildings, typicallyplacing a habitable basement below thesanctuary. In this case, the tower provides aspace in which to ascend to the elevatedmain floor.

The vigorous Gothic detailing exhibits noneof the scholarly understanding associatedwith English ecclesiologists; A.W. Puginwould have been appalled by this design.Nonetheless, it reflected a new willingnesson the part of Baptists—now prominent inthe city’s social establishment—to indulge inthe opulence and fantasy of contemporaryrevival styles.

In the work of Walter and his contemporar-ies, the revival styles were interchangeable;this church could have been as easily Greekas Gothic. Here, the Gothic is problematic inthe historically absurd suggestion of ham-mer beam trusses that die against a flatceiling. On the exterior, it is more success-fully expressed in the tower and spire, bystepped buttresses with crocketed lead

FREEMASON STREET BAPTIST CHURCHFREEMASON STREET BAPTIST CHURCHFREEMASON STREET BAPTIST CHURCHFREEMASON STREET BAPTIST CHURCHFREEMASON STREET BAPTIST CHURCH1848-1850, 1895, 1915, 1957, exterior restored 1997Norfolk

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Freemason Street Baptist Church, designed by ThomasU. Walter. The church was dedictaed in 1850 and wasrestored in 1997. Photograph by Carl Lounsbury, 1984.

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finials, and by lancet windows with label moldingsabove. Inside, four-centered arches span all door-ways, and clustered, cast-iron columns support agallery running along three walls of the sanctuary. Theparapet is adorned with a repetitive frieze of blindlancet arches and finials. All of this work appears to beoriginal.

The chancel remains largely intact, but with theaddition of the present wainscoting. This work meetsthe lower moldings of the gallery in an awkwardfashion and does not match the wainscot below thepulpit. It may be associated with the baptisterybehind, which was added as part of the 1915 rearaddition. Also added are the present slip pews andtheir associated partitions, all existing window sash,the glazed screen in the vestibule, and the doors fromthat vestibule to the sanctuary. These appear to dateto the period around 1900 and may have been associ-ated with the addition of a Gothic revival Sunday-school wing to the eastern side of the building in 1895.

The present lighting fixtures are modern; however, acast-iron register in the center of the ceiling exhibits a

large hole where an early gas lighting fixture oncehung. Stubbed-off piping for gas sconces protrudes atregular intervals through the parapets of the galler-ies—there being three locations on each side. In therobing room east of the chancel is a complete gas cockfor what may have been a similar fixture.

In the robing areas that flank the chancel, the plasterwalls are ruled in imitation of stone. This plasterexhibits substantial accumulations of paint and maybe the only original interior wall finish to survive. Inthe east room, the stair to the chancel appears early,though the opening through the front of the gallery isawkwardly executed and has all the appearances of analteration. The stair in the west room seems to havebeen modified around the turn of the century. Thedoors to these areas are both original.

The stairs ascending from the vestibule to the balconyappear to be original; the door below the west stairseems to be early as well. MRW

Interior of Freemason Street Baptist Church. Photograph byCarl Lounsbury, 2001.

Norfolk Tour

River in 1739 began construction of one of the largestAnglican churches in the colony, a brick-walledstructure extending 85 feet in length by 33 feet inwidth. Two short north and south wings, measuring 15feet in length by 26 feet in width, are located closer tothe east end of the church, creating a Latin cross plan,which as mentioned elsewhere in the guidebook, hadno liturgical significance. Laid in Flemish bond withglazed headers above a beveled water table, thechurch has a series of compass-headed windows that

Erected by wealthy merchants for a growing portat the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in 1739,Elizabeth River Parish Church, known since

1832 as St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, retains theimprint of many generations. Filled with a number ofeighteenth-century gravestones and fragments of itslate colonial perimeter wall, the churchyard suggestsa place of tranquillity and great antiquity in an urbanlandscape of modern office buildings, wide boule-vards, and a massive commercial mall. Yet lateradditions and alterations mark the site as the quintes-sential palimpsest of Norfolk’s turbulent history.

Inspired by the cruciform plan of Bruton ParishChurch in the colony’s capital, the vestry of Elizabeth

1840s woodcut of St. Paul’s Church from Henry Howe,Historical Collection of Virginia.

STSTSTSTST. P. P. P. P. PAULAULAULAULAUL’S CHURCH’S CHURCH’S CHURCH’S CHURCH’S CHURCH1739, sacristy 1877, tower 1907, interior largely 1913Norfolk

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are generously scaled (measuring five by twelve feet),hallmarks of public building in Virginia in the secondand third quarters of the eighteenth century. Anunusual detail to survive is the embossed brickworkforming the date “1739” on the south wall of the southwing above a colonial revival doorway. Generally,such letters or numbers were inscribed in glazedheaders set flush rather than raised from the wallsurface. Just below the date are the raised letters “SB,” presumably standing for Samuel Boush, a mer-chant who had been chosen as the first mayor of thenewly incorporated city and was instrumental inimproving the fortunes of the Anglican parish.

None of the colonial interior has survived. Originally,the pulpit stood in one of the internal corners of thecrossing, the communion table in the east end, andpews arranged along a single aisle lining most if notthe entire ground floor. The only eighteenth-centurywoodwork in the building, the much altered altar-piece, came from Elizabeth City Parish Church inHampton. Most of the interior dates from 1913 whenlocal architect Finley Ferguson, Sr. designed thecolonial revival fittings to replace the Gothic wood-work and polychromatic stenciling that had beeninstalled in the late nineteenth century. Some earlierGothic revival pews survive in the galleries.

What Lord Dunmore’s shelling of the city on January1, 1776 did not destroy, a fire that swept through thecity shortly thereafter left the church as a roofless

ruin. (One of the cannonballs launched from theBritish ships is still lodged in the wall of the church inthe southeast corner of the building. Modern mortarholds this ancient stigmata firmly in place.) Followingthe war, the building received a new roof, but thechurch fell on hard times and internecine bickering bylocal Episcopalians resulted in the building beingtaken over by a Baptist congregation in 1805. Nearlythree decades later the Baptists left and the Episcopa-lians moved back in and expunged the trace of itsrecent past by consecrating the building as St. Paul’s.During the antebellum period the building was refit-ted, and by 1857, a tower was erected in the northeastcorner in the position of the present sacristy. Inaddition to the refitting of the interior in the Gothictaste in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, thecongregation began expanding the footprint of thebuilding. In 1877 it replaced the antebellum north-east tower with the present brick structure thatserved as a sacristy. In the early twentieth century,the church expanded westward with a belltower andchoir room in a style that echoed the original colonialfeatures. In 1909 the large parish house was built, andshortly thereafter, Ferguson reconfigured the sanctu-ary with colonial revival fittings that was intended toreconfirm the continuity of Norfolk’s oldest Christiancongregation with its colonial past. CRL

Plan of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Norfolk. Drawing byCarl Lounsbury after Hanbury, Newell and Evans.

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