| The following is from a "handout" given to us by
the "Belle of Birmingham" at the church: A Brief History
The first English settlers arrived on St. Simons Island on February
22, 1736, and after breakfast joined in reading the Litany with the
Reverend Benjamin Ingham.
On March 9, 1736, the Rev.
Charles Wesley, MA, entered his ministry at Frederica. He served as
Secretary for Indian Affairs and Chaplain to Gen. James Oglethorpe.
During the years 1736-1766, services were conducted by John Wesley,
George Whitfield and other clergy appointed by the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel. The Wesleys and other ministers were
ordained clergymen of the Church of England by whom the Episcopal
Church in the United States was planted and nurtured. After the
return of the Wesleys to England, the evangelical revival eventuated
in the origin of the Methodist Church in which John Wesley had the
principle role. Three of the most outstanding religious leaders of
the 18th century were associated with the establishment of the
church on St. Simons Island.
In 1752, the trustees
surrendered their Charter to the King and Georgia became a Royal
Colony. In 1758, the Province was divided into parishes and
Frederica and St. Simons were designated as St. James Parish.
Following the Revolutionary
War, the descendants of early settlers petitioned for a charter and
were incorporated by act of the State Legislature on December 22,
1808 as THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE TOWN OF FREDERICA, called Christ
Church, Land from the town of Frederica was also GIVEN, GRANTED AND
SECURED TO AND FOR THE USE AND BENEFIT OF THE SAID EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
The first church on the present location was erected in 1820 and the
congregation worshipped in it until the outbreak of the Civil War.
The Rev. Edmund Matthews,
DD, who became rector of Christ Church, Frederica, in 1810, was one
of three clergymen composing the Primary Convention for the
organization of the Diocese of Georgia in 1823.
The Rev. Anson Green Phelps
Dodge, Jr. rebuilt Christ Church, Frederica following its
destruction during the Civil War, as a memorial to his first wife,
Ellen. The Church was consecrated on the Feast of the Epiphany, 1886
by the Rt. Rev. J. W. Beckwith, DD, Bishop of Georgia. In addition
to establishing an endowment for Christ Church, Frederica, Mr. Dodge
built and endowed the Anson Dodge Home for Boys (closed 1956) and
established the Georgia Missions Fund for the support of
missionaries and teachers in certain designated counties of the
Diocese.
The present church building
is cruciform in design, with trussed Gothic roof. Stained glass
windows, given as memorials, commemorate incidents in the life of
Christ and the early history of the church on St. Simons Island. The
Font was given to Christ Church, Frederica, by the Sunday School of
St. Thomas Church, New Haven, CT in 1884. Part of the Credence Table
and an inset in the present altar are from the alter of the 1820
church.
In Christ Church yard are
buried former rectors of Christ Church, the families of early
settlers and of plantation days. Also buried here is the first
Georgia State Historian, Lucian Lamar Knight. The oldest gravestone
discovered in the Church Yard dates from 1803. |
