By Rick Steelhammer
For Charleston Gazette-Mail
Built 173 years ago as a Kanawha County salt baron’s gift to his 18-year-old daughter, Virginia’s Chapel has survived the test of time but is now in need of some TLC in order to remain an iconic presence along U.S. 60 in Cedar Grove.
The Virginia’s Chapel Foundation, the organization that owns and manages the historic church, is in the midst of a campaign to raise the estimated $42,000 needed to:
- Repair and stabilize its steeple, now on the verge of collapse due to water damage and wood rot
- Paint and re-plaster damaged interior and exterior surfaces
- Replace gutters and downspouts
- Replace an HVAC unit
A church built on salt, natural gas
Construction of the church was authorized by William O. Tompkins, a War of 1812 veteran who moved to the Kanawha Valley from Hanover County, Virginia, in 1818 to stake his claim in the region’s blossoming salt-making industry. After successfully opening a saltworks with a brother-in-law, Tompkins made an indelible mark in the trade in 1841, when he became the first salt maker to use natural gas — previously considered a useless byproduct of brine drilling — to replace wood and coal as a fuel for evaporating brine and to illuminate his saltworks at night. Some historians have credited Tompkins with being the first person in America to use natural gas in a manufacturing process.
As salt production in the Kanawha Valley soared to more than 3 million bushels a year in the 1840s, making it the most productive salt-making area in the nation, Tompkins’ fortunes followed suit. In 1844, he directed some of the enslaved people in his possession to build Cedar Grove, a two-story red brick mansion which still stands a few hundred yards west of the site now occupied by Virginia’s Chapel. Presumably, Virginia’s Chapel was also built by slaves. Census records show that Tompkins owned 38 enslaved people in Kanawha County in 1850.
According to a history produced by the Virginia’s Chapel Foundation, which now owns and manages the church, when Tompkins asked daughter Amanda Virginia Tompkins, upon completing her schooling, what she most wanted for a graduation gift, she replied, “a church near her home — unusual for a young girl,” but nevertheless prompting the construction of Virginia’s Chapel.
The new church’s namesake — who preferred being identified by her middle name, Virginia, over her given name — was one of 10 children raised by Tompkins and his wife, Rachel Grant Tompkins, the aunt of future Union Army general and 18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
The church was built on a bluff overlooking Kellys Creek, surrounded on three sides by lawn and forest which would eventually accommodate a church cemetery, and fronted by the Midland Trail, now U.S. 60.
The cemetery includes burials of Tompkins family descendants, church members, and Cedar Grove area pioneers. Among notable pioneers buried here are William Morris Jr., who established the first fort on the Kanawha River near Cedar Grove in 1774 and went on to serve as an officer in the Virginia Militia during the Battle of Point Pleasant and the Revolutionary War. One section of the cemetery contains the marked but unidentified graves of a number of slaves.
In 1860, Amanda Virginia Tompkins married the Rev. John Calvin Brown, a Presbyterian minister who served on the faculty of the Lewisburg Seminary for Ladies, and the couple moved to Greenbrier County.
Used as a Civil War hospital, stable
The Tompkins family’s connection to Gen. U.S. Grant may have spared its Cedar Grove mansion from damage during the Civil War. Following William Tompkins’ death in 1857 and prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1861, Grant supplied his aunt with a letter, signed by him, informing Union troops to treat the building and its occupants with respect. It was reportedly shown to, and observed by, federal troops on several occasions during the course of the war.
Although the house was spared from occupation, Virginia’s Chapel, also known as The Old Brick Church, was not. Confederate troops used the church as a field hospital during at least one campaign, while Union forces reportedly used it as a temporary horse stable. After the war, according to the church history, the Tompkins family was awarded $700 to repair damage done to the church by Union Army horses.
In 1883, a small addition was attached to the church, adding one window to each side of the building. In the early 1900s, Virginia’s Chapel was deeded to the Southern Methodist Church, which added a cupola and bell tower to the structure.
By the 1930s, the chapel was struggling to accommodate its growing membership, so separate Methodist congregations were launched in both Glasgow and Cedar Grove, with Virginia’s Chapel left to host occasional weddings and funerals, but no regular church services.
Chapel at the century mark, and beyond
“When all the pews in the church were full, they used to open the windows so the people gathered outside could hear the sermons,” said John Patrick, president of the Virginia’s Chapel Foundation, which now owns and manages the church.
In 1953, as the chapel’s 100th birthday approached, volunteers sanded floors, repaired windows, and replaced its slate roof. From then until the early 1970s, Tompkins family descendant Rachel Tompkins Settle, mother of National Book Award-winning author Mary Lee Settle, raised funds to paint and maintain the historic structure.
In 1980, shortly after the chapel was added to the National Register of Historic Places, the Senior Council of the Upper Kanawha Valley applied for and received a state historic preservation grant that funded a more complete restoration the chapel.
Now, more than 25 years later, a substantial amount of repair work is again needed to see the church past its 200th birthday.
“If we don’t get repairs underway soon, the wood supporting the bell tower that’s been rotting away will collapse,” said Virginia’s Chapel Foundation board member Cheryl Chandler. “We also need to restore the doors, upgrade the wiring and replace the air conditioning unit, after thieves stole all its copper tubing.”
Once repairs are complete, plans call for using the chapel as a wedding and special events venue and for special church services in conjunction with Glasgow United Methodist Church.
“We already have two weddings booked for 2027,” Patrick said.
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