HISTORY of
CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Christ Episcopal Church and Rectory- Vicksburg, Mississippi
As a churchman of an earlier generation Paul Polk, Sr., so eloquently describes Christ Church - Vicksburg:
"When much the greater part of Vicksburg was a succession of wooded growths reaching down the sharp hill slope to the river, and clearings on the hilltops and in the valleys produced cotton and corn, Christ Church was built."
Try to think of Vicksburg as it was then, a frontier town in the new state of Mississippi, a recent addition to the very young country we now proudly call The United States of America.
Envision a dusty street lined with log cabins and wood frame houses - the street leading downhill to the big river which was the principal means of long distance transportation. People are walking or riding horses on the streets that were dusty in dry weather and muddy in wet.
None of the amenities that we take for granted were available in Vicksburg or for that matter, anywhere in the USA:
Then, what did the people in the frontier town of Vicksburg have to work with?
Wood in abundance (from the unlimited forests that stretched in every direction)
Clay soil from which bricks could be made (if you build a furnace and have fuel)
Wrought iron nails and pins that could be transported from the East coast (at a high cost)
Cast iron bells could be transported from the East coast (at a higher cost)
While you let your imagination roam, try to imagine the difficulties faced by the early citizens of Vicksburg in just surviving, and then consider that in addition to this that a relatively small group had the foresight and determination to want to build a church. Inspiration and guidance came to Vicksburg Episcopalians in 1826 in the person of the rector of the Episcopal church in Natchez, Mississippi, a church established a few years earlier. Intermittent church services were held in borrowed buildings for some years while the congregation struggled to get the funds and materials to build a church building. Discouragement surely afflicted the congregation in those early days for Construction was seriously delayed by a fire that destroyed most of the materials that had been assembled at the site. In addition, a yellow fever epidemic afflicted the region about that time and among its many victims was the first rector of this church, the Reverend George Weller.
When construction was started a space for the church foundation was leveled on the loess hill where this building now stands. Bishop Leonidas Polk officiated at the formal ceremony to lay the cornerstone of the building on April 19, 1830. Construction work was of course, all by hand labor for bulldozers and backhoes had not yet been invented. The foundation was just brick and labor - no reinforced concrete as in modern construction, because steel was not yet invented and concrete technology was still in the future. The walls were just brick and mortar, continuing up from the foundation to full height of the outside walls and the bell tower. The church floor plan was a simple rectangle about 60 feet long and 40 feet wide. There was a basement area under the main floor of the church. The church bell is made of cast iron, cast in Philadelphia, PA., probably transported overland to the Ohio river and then downstream by steamboat or barge to Vicksburg. The cast iron threshold was probably constructed and transported similarly.
The one thing that frontier Vicksburg had that is better than anything available today is wood. Wood for the framing of the bell tower. Wood for the roof trusses. Wood for the floor framing. Wood for the pews. The loess hills of this area were covered with magnificent stands of virgin oak, pecan, and walnut trees, types of wood that makes great furniture, flooring and paneling. The flatlands to the North of Vicksburg had extensive tracts of huge centuries old cypress trees. Cypress wood has the most valuable property (especially in this climate) of being extremely resistant to rotting.
The bell tower is reinforced with 14 by 14 inch cypress timbers. A similarly cross-sectioned cypress timber 60 feet long runs under the floor of the church from front to back. All these timbers are essentially knot free, a quality that is unavailable today. The roof trusses are made of pecan. It is difficult to imagine how major building construction was accomplished in those days without the cranes and machines that we now consider essential, but finish it they did. Bishop James Harvey Otey of Tennessee conducted the formal consecration ceremony on May 3, 1843.
The original floor plan of the church had the choir and organ on a balcony in the rear of the church, as was the custom in Episcopal churches in the early 1800's. The original pews had doors (with the family name on the door) as was the custom at the time and church members paid a pew tax for their pew to support the church.
Lighting was by candles and oil lamps and the reflector array in the center of the church ceiling probably was installed to enhance the light derived from the candle chandelier. The openings around the chandelier reflector were probably for ventilation to get reduce the fumes from the numerous burning candles. We worry about air pollution these days, but people in those days had much worse pollution conditions inside buildings due to the open burning of candles and fireplaces. We occasionally have candlelight services in the church and experiencing that situation always makes me wonder how people could read by candlelight.
No records exist as to the type of original windows installed in the church. They may well have been made with clear glass panes such as those in many of the early Episcopal churches on the East coast or possibly panes with simple patterns. Certainly cost as well as current church fashion would have been factors in the selection. Transportation of fragile glass panes would certainly have been difficult at the time of construction. The one window in the church known to pre-date the civil war and to survive the siege bombardment is the central window on the East side of the church (Locust St. side). This stained glass window dates to 1855 and was crafted in Germany. All the other stained glass windows in the church building were installed after the civil war.
Between the American Revolutionary War and the civil war, the central US population experienced an unprecedented population expansion and Vicksburg prospered and grew as part of this episode. While the reasons for this unusually rapid expansion are many, there were several inventions that provided critical support to this development. The invention of the steam engine in the late 1700's and the development of the technology to make steel led in turn to the invention of railroads and steamboats. Prior to the steamboat era, people could get to this area only by walking across country, riding a horse, or by floating down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and the down the latter. Development of the steamboat revolutionized transportation in the central US. A primitive steamboat started operation on the Mississippi River in 1812, only two years after Fulton made the first experimental steamboat run on the Hudson River. Steamboats were critical to transportation on the Mississippi River because prior to this, people could go only one way, and that was downstream. About the time this church was built steamboats were beginning to be recognized as an acceptable way to transport people and goods. They blew up frequently but, life was dangerous in those days anyway conditions that we would consider outrageous were accepted.
Railroads followed a development path similar to that of steamboats. With steam engines for propulsion and steel to make rails and wheels, and all the multitude of parts that make up a train, it was possible to construct a revolution in land transportation even more dramatic than that on the waterways. Railroad construction started on the East coast in the early 1800's and in 1844 a railroad reached Vicksburg. It was then possible to travel from Savannah to Vicksburg with unprecedented speed. In the few years between the turn of the century (1800) and the arrival of the railroad, Vicksburg changed from being a rough frontier town to a reasonably civilized city.
One notable episode in the transition of Vicksburg from frontier town to a somewhat civilized city is marked by the Bodley monument, one block to the East of this church. The steamboats were a marvelous blessing in the form of improved transportation but this same invention brought with it a type of person who used the new technology for nefarious ends. (Doesn't this sound familiar to the use and misuse of new technology today.) Riverboat gamblers became a plague on the city, so the church fathers thought, and in 1843 notified the gamblers they must leave town or suffer serious consequences. The gamblers ignored the warning and so a committee of church fathers from several of the churches in town (including this one) confronted the gamblers. In the melee that followed Dr. Bodley (a member of this church) was shot and killed. The response of the church committee was immediate, for in those days every man carried a gun, and four gamblers were killed. The remainder fled Vicksburg and confined their activities to the river and other towns, at least for a while. As a sequel to this episode, it is ironic that the casinos in Vicksburg now employ more people than any other industry in the area.
In the history of Vicksburg, and this church, there are a number of traumatic events but the one event that predominates is the Civil War and the accompanying siege. Among other ironies of life, Vicksburg was strongly pro-union in the period immediately prior to the civil war but then became a key Confederate stronghold during the war. Also somewhat strange was the fact that Confederate defense of Vicksburg was commanded by a man from Pennsylvania, a section of the country that was strongly pro-union. During the siege of Vicksburg, this church was damaged by the explosive shelling by Union gunboats on the river and the minister's home, called the rectory, on the West side of the church was so badly damaged that it had to be torn down and completely replaced after the civil war. The present church rectory on the West side of the church (the same site as the original rectory) was built in 1873. Temporary repairs sufficed for several years after the war until the congregation recovered enough to make permanent repairs. The needed repairs presented an opportunity to remodel the church in the Victorian style that had become popular about that time.
The Rev. W. W. Lord was installed as rector of Christ Church in 1851 and when the civil war erupted he was the one to lend aid and comfort for the many tragedies that the war produced. Even during the siege of Vicksburg, with its terrifying bombardment, Rev. Lord conducted daily services.
The aftermath of the civil war produced some entirely unanticipated situation, some of these events producing aftershocks that reverberate to this day. After the siege of Vicksburg and for many years after the civil war, Vicksburg was the headquarters for a Union army of occupation for the south central conquered territory. At the time West Point religious services were compulsory and were traditionally held in the Episcopal chapel. As a result, a significant percentage of the "army of occupation" union officers stationed in Vicksburg attended Christ Episcopal Church which, during the civil war, was the only Episcopal church in town. (That situation changed rapidly after the civil war.)
An event which may seem ludicrous today, but was serious at the time, occurred at the Christmas service in 1863. The church service was well attended by Union soldiers and the minister was very conscious of the fact. As a traditional part of the Episcopal church service, a prayer is offered for the President of the United States. During the civil war, the ministers in the Confederate states modified this part of the service so that they prayed for the President of the Confederate States of America While the civil war was still not over in 1863, under the conditions existing in Vicksburg and the church at that time, the minister prayed for the President of the United States instead of the President of the Confederate States. Several ladies of the congregation made a pointed exit from the church when this change in the service was noted and the commanding general of the Union troops noted the exit as well. The next day the offending ladies were ordered to leave the city by the offended General and banned them from the area for an extended length of time.
This and no doubt many other situations prompted Rev. Lord to embark on a drastic change in behavior. He left the church and Vicksburg unannounced and made his way through the union military lines to territory still held by the Confederates to the East. He joined the Confederate army in South Carolina as a chaplain and remained in that capacity until the end of the war. He remained in South Carolina for several years after the war, but about 1868 he decided to return to Vicksburg. On his return he asked to be re-instated as rector of Christ Church claiming that he had not resigned his position as rector and as a returning confederate veteran was due his job back. Rev. Lord had been well liked by the congregation, but there was the serious problem that the church had called another minister during the absence of Rev. Lord and the new minister was also well liked.
The church vestry was in a quandary and for a time attempted to have two ministers. This situation, predictably, produced factions in the church favoring one man or the other. There was a perhaps natural tendency of the confederate veterans to favor Rev. Lord who was also a confederate veteran. The end result was a schism with one group leaving in 1870 with Rev. Lord to form a second Episcopal church in Vicksburg, The Church of the Holy Trinity.
But the departure of Rev. Lord and his adherents was not the only turmoil following the civil war, black servants came to Christ Church with their masters and sat in the balcony of the church. Feeling a well understood need to have a church of their own, the former slaves established Saint Mary's Episcopal Church of Vicksburg as the first black Episcopal church in Mississippi. The current minister of St. Mary's is the great grandson of the first minister of that church.
A few years after the civil war ended, the congregation had recovered enough to consider renovation of the building, both to repair the damage and to enlarge the building. A semi-circular chancel was added on the North end of the building and this space includes the altar, the choir pews and the organ. Changing the organ and choir from the back of the church to the front of the church to follow the new Victorian style of church architecture. The space on the lower level of the building below the chancel was made into a small chapel. The chapel is a beautifully proportioned room and is used for the early service on Sundays and for weekday services. It is also a popular setting for small weddings and other services more appropriate for a small room than in the big church. The original altar for the church was modified and moved to the chapel and a new altar installed in the church.
Memorial stained glass windows have been installed in Christ Church at various times since the civil war.
Angel window in West wall - 1893
Christ over altar = 1905
Window in East chancel wall - 1980
There are several aspects of the stained glass windows that are not apparent unless they are examined closely. Stained glass can be made in several ways and in these windows you can see three types of techniques. One way is to add a surface coloring that is fired onto the glass pane as a glaze. Another is to mix chemicals into the molten glass to give it color. Some of the best known glass coloring additives are cobalt which gives glass a brilliant blue color and gold which gives glass a beautiful red coloring.
Another technique developed by Tiffany of New York City about 1870 was to vary the thickness of the glass to give subtle shading of the image being developed. The Angel window in the West wall and the Christ window over the altar ate Tiffany windows and are constructed using this technique.
The following are added points of Christ Church:
Eagle Lectern - from England - symbol of St. John according to church tradition
Tornado in 1953 caused damage to the windows (repairs followed)
(This history has been graciously compiled and written by Mr. George Downing)
