Churches of Cunningham Chapel Parish
Cunningham Chapel Parish grew out of Frederick Parish which was created concurrently with Frederick County in 1738 by an act of the colonial General Assembly of Virginia as an ecclesiastical unit of the Church of England. Cunningham Chapel was the first of three chapels of the parish. It was probably constructed in 1747, at a location three miles south of present day Berryville. After the original log building was destroyed in the Revolutionary War, it was replaced by a stone structure, Old Chapel, that still stands today at a site near the present intersection of US Route 340 and VA Route 255.
In the 1840s, we outgrew our chapel known as "Old Chapel" and built Christ Church in the village of Millwood. During this period, nearly every Episcopal church from the southern end of the Shenandoah Valley into what is now West Virginia was established by the Rt. Rev. William Meade, third Bishop of Virginia, and fifth rector of our parish. At that time, the parish was named "Frederick," for the county from which it was formed in 1733. One of our many missions, Christ Church in Winchester, requested the Frederick Parish name when it became independent, and we gave it to them, renaming ourselves Cunningham Chapel Parish. (Click image to view full size.)
When the railroad came through the town of Boyce (then called "Boyceville") at the end of the 19th century, the parish built Emanuel Chapel in 1912 at the crossroads of what is now US 340 and VA Route 723 to serve the thriving new railroad community of Boyce. In June 2010, the property was deconsecrated and sold and is no longer affiliated with Cunningham Chapel Parish.
Christ Church, Millwood today...
Read more history about Cunningham Chapel Parish... |
Ministers of the Parish
See Profiles of Bishop Meade and Ministers serving from 1811-1934
|
