Little Fork Church

Culpeper County, VA

 The first church on this site was built of wood and burned in 1773. It was rebuilt of brick in 1776. This is one of the few colonial era churches that still stands in Virginia’s northern piedmont.

Window with Reflections

The nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places describes the exterior as follows:

"Little Fork Church is a one-story brick structure which measures approximately 83\' x 33\'. Its walls are laid in Flemish bond with random glazed headers above and below the water table. Unfortunately most of the brick below the water table as well as the brick gutter have been covered by cement. Rubbed brick marks the four corners of the building as well as the window jambs, principal window arches, and original door jambs. The long south wall of the church is divided into seven-bays containing six semi-circular arched windows and a central door. This door, as well as the west door, has been altered but probably both originally featured brick pediments. The west facade has two small rectangular windows placed high on the wall as if to be gallery windows although it is not certain that the church ever had a gallery. The whole of the building is surrounded by a modillion cornice (probably the original) and is crowned by a hipped roof."

A tall monument in the churchyard was erected in 1904 in memory of the Little Fork Rangers, a local Confederate Cavalry Company that drilled here early in the Civil War.

Mosaic Monday

A Civil War trails marker tells how the “peaceful parish became an entrenched camp.”

"In the spring of 1861, the Little Fork Rangers (Co. D, 4th Virginia Cavalry), mustered in the yard of Little Fork Episcopal Church. On July 4, the Rangers were presented with a battle flag as they left Rixeyville for the First Battle of Manassas. Capt. Robert E. Utterback called on them to follow the flag "into the face of the enemy, defending it with the last drop of your blood!" Utterback's call proved all too prophetic as the Rangers served under Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and other commanders from Manassas, to Gettysburg, to Appomattox Court House."

Read the rest of this marker on HMDB.