Saint Paul's Episcopal Church

Here follows an excerpt from the Clio Foundation website about the church as written by Zack Rakes:

Introduction:
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is a historic Episcopal church located in the Old Town area of Alexandria, Virginia. Built in 1818, the church is particularly significant for being the only nearly untouched Gothic Revival-style building designed by famed architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. On May 9th, 1985, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the church continues to serve and be a driving force in its community for its congregation.

Backstory and Context:
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was founded on November 12th, 1809, due to a split in the congregation of the pre-existing Christ Church. The split had come about due to the resignation of Reverend William Lewis Gibson in October of that year, due to some of the congregation taking issue with his clerical garb, as well as with the way that he delivered his sermons for worship. Reverend Gibson’s leaving took about half of the congregation with him, and they established a new church of their own in an unused meeting house down on Fairfax Street. The church actually flourished, and by 1817, the congregation had grown so much that it was clear that a new building was needed. The pastor at the time, Reverend William Holland Wilmer, D.D., was a close friend of the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Wilmer contracted Latrobe to design a church for the St. Paul’s congregation, the designs were out in 1817, and the church itself was finished in 1818.

After the completion of the church, St. Paul’s continued to flourish like ever before, despite the onset of a national depression, and would continue to do so over the coming century. The church was active in the community, devising outreach programs, establishing a theological seminary, and even opening a school for African Americans. The church continued to shine well into the 1900s, and on May 9th, 1985, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the church continues its history of community outreach and education.


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Here follows an excerpt from the church's website:

History of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
The Beginning

On Sunday morning, October 15, 1809, the Rev. William Lewis Gibson announced from the pulpit that he was resigning as rector of Christ Church.

In hindsight, this development was probably inevitable. Rev. Gibson came from Annapolis, Md., to become the rector of Christ Church, Alexandria, in 1807. At his first meeting with the vestry, he asked them to purchase a white surplice for him.[1] Although the vestry fulfilled his request, it created controversy because a surplice was considered “high church,” which favored the more catholic aspects of worship, in a “low church” like Christ Church, which deemphasized them. The negative reaction among some members of the congregation was intense; Edmund J. Lee, a prominent Alexandrian who was a vestryman and warden, walked out of the church.

Rev. Gibson’s ministry had a promising start. However, gossip began to reach him that he had offended some congregants by speaking too harshly and that his sermons were considered too abrasive. Given his “excitable nature,” he said some unkind things in return and the relationship with his congregation deteriorated. When an exasperated Rev. Gibson announced his resignation, without first informing the vestry, it further aggravated the situation.

On October 20, the vestry met to consider a resolution to confer with Rev. Gibson to resolve any misunderstandings. It failed by one vote, thereby letting the resignation stand. Meanwhile, a group of prominent church members had met to draft a letter in support of Rev. Gibson. Most of the signatories became founders of St. Paul’s three weeks later.[2]

Rev. Gibson was persuaded to write a letter to retract his resignation. On November 8, the vestry met to discuss both the letter in support of Rev. Gibson and his apology. The apology was not accepted and the fallout resulted in the formation of a new congregation under his leadership. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was officially established on November 9, 1809. On November 11, a small notice appeared in the Alexandria Gazette advising that “The Reverend Mr. Gibson will commence preaching to-morrow morning at 11 o’clock, in the Independent Meeting House in Fairfax Street.”

The first vestry of St. Paul’s was elected on January 23, 1810: Mark Butts, John Hooff, Lawrence Hooff (chief warden), Nathaniel C. Hunter, Daniel McLean, Thomas Moore, Augustine Newton, James B. Nickolls, Charles Page, Thomas West Peyton, Joseph Thomas, and John Young.[3]

The building where the congregation worshipped was on South Fairfax St., between Duke and Prince Streets. It was purchased by Daniel McLean in July 1810 and given to the church in December 1813. In return, the vestries and wardens “shall forever hereafter provide the said Daniel McLean and his heirs…with such Pew in the said Church as he or they shall select and permit him and them to occupy the same without any charge or contribution for the use thereof.”[4] This privilege conveyed to the new church building in 1818 and a silver plaque now commemorates the McLean family pew.


The Rev. William Holland Wilmer was St. Paul’s second rector from 1812 to 1827. Under his leadership, St. Paul’s grew and prospered so quickly that another building was needed to accommodate the larger congregation. He retained renowned architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe to design plans for a new building. Latrobe was known to Rev. Wilmer when he designed St. John’s Church of Lafayette Square and Rev. Wilmer briefly served simultaneously as rector of both St. Paul’s and St. John’s. Latrobe designed both the interior and exterior of St. Paul’s, although the relationship suffered due to disagreements over the construction and changes the builder made to Latrobe’s design. The cornerstone for St. Paul’s was laid on June 21, 1817, by the Masons of the Alexandria-Washington Lodge #22.

Rev. Wilmer’s impact on Alexandria, St. Paul’s, and the Episcopal Church cannot be overstated. His most lasting achievement is his role in the founding of the Virginia Theological Seminary, when a small group of 14 men met in the parish building of St. Paul’s on October 15, 1823. Rev. Wilmer remained affiliated with the Seminary until he left Alexandria for Williamsburg in October 1826, where he became president of the College of William and Mary and rector of Bruton Parish. He died in Williamsburg on July 24, 1827. Had he not died at the age of 45, he almost certainly would have been elected bishop of Virginia after Richard Channing Moore.

Rectors following Rev. Wilmer left their imprint on St. Paul’s in different ways. Rev. William Jackson succeeded Rev. Wilmer; a native of England, he was considered a great evangelical minister. Under his leadership, Sunday School attendance grew rapidly. He also made it his mission to call on every St. Paul’s family in Alexandria. Rev. James Johnston was popularly known as Parson Johnston and he carried on Rev. Jackson’s missionary work of the Sunday School. He served as rector until 1859, resigning due to ill health.

The longest-serving rector was Rev. George Hatley Norton, who came to St. Paul’s in 1859, and whose tenure was interrupted by the Civil War. Shortly after the start of the war in 1861, he volunteered his service as chaplain to the 17th Regiment of Virginia. He did not serve in the field because of his health and took temporary charge of Grace Church in Lexington, Va.

Nearly all of Alexandria’s churches were closed in May 1861 when the town was occupied by the Union Army.[5] One notorious event of the war took place at St. Paul’s on February 9, 1862. Rev. Kensey Johns Stewart had been leading the church services, first in various halls around town, and later, back on church property. Rev. Stewart had been deliberately omitting the political prayers, including the prayer for the president, from the service. Rev. Stewart was arrested during the service by Union Army soldiers on February 9 for omitting the prayer for the president. He was escorted out of the church at gunpoint, amid the chaos created by his arrest.

Following this episode, the church was closed and later seized by the federal authorities in June 1862 to be used as a hospital. A more detailed description of the Civil War period at St. Paul’s and the events of February 9, 1862, can be found in The History of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia, November 12, 1809–November 12, 1984, by Ruth Lincoln Kaye. A contemporaneous account of the incident was reported in The Local News on February 10, 1862.[6]

The Building

Since the construction of St. Paul’s in 1817-1818, there have been no alterations to Latrobe’s exterior design. The vestry spent $600 after the Civil War to repair and restore the interior for the congregation’s use. Rev. Peter Parker Phillips, the rector who succeeded Rev. Norton, supervised a major change to the sanctuary in 1906, when the shallow chancel of Latrobe’s original interior design was replaced with a recessed chancel.

There were 27 windows when the church was built and the placing of stained-glass windows began in 1872. By 1878 the Ladies’ Sewing and Mite Society paid for all the clear glass in the original 27 windows to be replaced with stained glass. Of particular note are the large Catherine wheel window that was installed on the east wall of the chancel and the memorial windows on the north and south walls. One memorial window was crafted by Rudolph Geissler and two by Henry Lee Willet; both artists’ works can be found in churches around the country.

A modern-day change to the interior is the addition of a small chapel called “The Chapel of the Good Shepherd” in 1977. The name commemorates the mission church that was sponsored by St. Paul’s at the corner of Fairfax and Franklin Streets. In one corner of the Chapel is a small, very old fireplace that was moved from its original location in the first vestry room when the chancel was recessed in 1906. The Chapel features a beautiful stained-glass window dedicated to the memory of a great-great-great-grandson of founder Daniel McLean. The window was executed by artisan Rowan LeCompte in 1981.

St. Paul’s Church was added to the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Community Involvement

Throughout its history, St. Paul’s has played an active role in Alexandria, through the use of its sanctuary and other buildings and the contributions of its rectors, vestry, and congregation. St. Paul’s has a long-standing relationship with the Diocese of Renk in South Sudan. The parish includes a South Sudanese worshipping community and helps to support the Renk Basic School through its “Pennies from Heaven” mission.

1813: St. Paul’s joined Christ Church, the Presbyterian Meeting House, and the Methodist Church in a series of services to raise money for the poor and needy.

1816: Rev. Wilmer helped found St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square, Washington, DC.

1818: Rev. Wilmer and Francis Scott Key were among the founders of the Education Society of Alexandria, the District of Columbia, and Georgetown to educate young men for the ministry.

1823: Rev. Wilmer and Rev. Reuel Keith met at St. Paul’s with a class of 14 young men, which was the origin of the Virginia Theological Seminary.

1835: Ann Brice Fitzhugh Wilmer, widow of Rev. Wilmer, returned to Alexandria where she established a boarding school for girls, with the support of members of St. Paul’s.

1872: Six women and two men, including St. Paul’s rector Rev. George Hatley Norton, met at St. Paul’s Lecture Room to establish what would become Alexandria Hospital. The group was led by Julia Johns, the eldest daughter of Bishop John Johns, the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.

1914: The Alexandria Red Cross was founded by a group of women who met at the homes of St. Paul’s members.

1924: Rev. Percy Foster Hall helped found St. Agnes School for Girls.

1944: Rev. Ernest de Bordenave was influential in the effort to add St. Agnes School to the Church Schools of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.

1948: St. Paul’s Nursery School and Day School was founded.[7]

1987: St. Paul’s, in partnership with other Episcopal churches, established the non-profit Community Lodgings to assist Alexandria’s working poor and families transitioning from homelessness to self-sufficiency.

1988: St. Paul’s is one of the many local churches to support Carpenter’s Shelter, an interfaith effort to assist men, women, and children in Northern Virginia.

Lazarus Ministry is a source of emergency assistance to residents of the City of Alexandria, offering help with rent, utility bills, medical bills, food, and clothing.

St. Paul’s Angel Tree program is established over 25 years ago to provide Christmas gifts for Alexandrians in need during the Christmas season.

2022: Rev. Oran Warder establishes the Damascus Project in partnership with the Latino Economic Development Center. The project’s goal is to assist entrepreneurs in the city of Alexandria, who are mostly women and new to this country, access small business loans. The project also seeks to promote economic equity in the City of Alexandria.

The Cemetery

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Cemetery is part of the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex in the City of Alexandria. The cemetery complex was established on November 12, 1809, after a municipal restriction had been imposed on burials within the town limits by the Common Council of Alexandria effective March 27, 1804. The cemetery is found by traveling south on Henry Street/Route 1, then turning right on Wilkes Street. At the entrance of Hamilton Lane, there are signs for several nearby cemeteries that are part of the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex. The entrance is marked by a black sign with gold lettering that says “St. Paul’s Cemetery – Established 1809.”

The earliest documented burial within the cemetery dates to 1809, while the first advertisement for the purchase of burial plots occurred in 1814. The cemetery contains the work of local stone carver Charles Lloyd Neale, who worked in Alexandria as early as 1837 (the earliest stone attributed to him) until his death in 1886. The funerary art and design include a wide range of artistic expressions: three-lobed gravestones that were popular during the 17th and early 18th centuries, Egyptian Revival-influenced obelisks, horizontal table slabs, and box tombs to more ornate Victorian-era and Classical Revival-style works.

A columbarium of limestone was constructed along the south edge of the grounds and was dedicated in 1991. In 2011, St. Paul’s supplemented the columbarium with the addition of the Mark J. Hulkower Memorial Garden where ashes may be strewn.

The Female Stranger

The identity of the Female Stranger is an enduring mystery in Alexandria. According to legend, in September 1816 a young couple arrived in Alexandria and disembarked from a ship that had traveled from the West Indies. The couple was well dressed; the woman was clearly ill and in need of immediate medical attention, her face obscured by a long, black veil. The couple traveled to Gadsby’s Tavern where a local doctor and nurses were hired to care for her, all of whom were sworn to secrecy. Despite their efforts, the young woman died on October 14, 1816. Her husband paid for a gravesite in St. Paul’s cemetery and a large table stone erected over her grave. Then he disappeared, leaving behind many debts, including the room at Gadsby’s, the medical care his wife received, and the burial.

The Female Stranger has been the subject of local picture postcards depicting her tombstone and her grave, and she is still popular with visitors today. Although her identity remains unknown, the Female Stranger is an indelible part of Alexandria’s history and St. Paul’s is honored to be her caretaker.

The cemetery is the final resting place for church leaders as well as prominent members of our congregation and community. Considering the city’s extensive 19th-century history, one can see many recognizable Alexandria family names: Fairfax, Hooff, Zimmerman, Peyton, Corse, McLean/McClean, Entwisle, Smoot, and many more.

The graves of many local civic leaders can be found in the cemetery as well as many prominent Confederate Civil War leaders. Notable burials include:

Marion Hannah Cox Wilmer, wife of St. Paul’s second rector, Rev. William H. Wilmer.
Sarah Wilmer Cannell, half-sister of Rev. Wilmer, and her husband, Isaac Cannell.
Rev. James T. Johnston, 4th rector of St. Paul’s.
Rev. George Hatley Norton, 5th rector of St. Paul’s.
Col. Abraham Charles Myers, Quartermaster General, CSA. Fort Myers. The city seat of Lee County, southwestern Florida is named for him.
Dr. Holmes Offley Paulding, who was one of the first to see the aftermath of Custer’s command after the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Brigadier General Montgomery Dent Corse, Confederate Army.
Daniel McLean, St. Paul’s benefactor, and businessman in banking and sugar refining.
Wilmer McLean, owner of the house where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant.
Capt. Josiah Hewes Davis “John” Smoot, whose many public service roles included fire warden, member of the Board of Health, and director in the Alexandria Water Company.
John Bryan Smoot, Mayor of Alexandria, 1885-1887.
Christopher Neale, Mayor of Alexandria, 1821-1824.
The cemetery was added to the Virginia Landmarks Register in 2022.


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Here follows an excerpt from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia about the church:

St. Paul's Episcopal Church is an historic Episcopal church in the Anglican Communion located in the Old Town area of Alexandria, Virginia. The church, consecrated in 1818, was designed by Benjamin Latrobe, the second architect of the United States Capitol. It is one of the few buildings designed by Latrobe in a Gothic style and one of the earliest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the United States. The church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. During the year 2009, St. Paul's Episcopal Church celebrated the bicentennial of its founding.

History
William Holland Wilmer and the rebuilding of the Episcopal Church in Virginia
During his term as rector of St. Paul's, 1812–1826, William Holland Wilmer was a major figure in the rebuilding of the Episcopal Church in Virginia in the aftermath of its disestablishment.[2] In addition to founding St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, in 1815, he wrote extensively on church matters, published numerous sermons on special occasions, and contributed regularly to church publications of the time including the "Washington Theological Repertory," which he founded in 1819.[3] In recognition of his many contributions, Wilmer was awarded an honorary doctorate (D.D.) by Brown University in 1820.[4]

In 1823, Wilmer obtained permission from the vestry to build at his own expense a small lecture room on church property at the corner of Pitt and Duke Streets. The building was used as a Sunday school, schoolhouse, and lecture room, and also as a town hall. This building was eventually purchased by the vestry and stood until 1855 when the structure was sold and plans were made for a larger replacement. A larger building in Gothic style was constructed on the same site in 1859 that was also used as a Sunday school, lecture hall and meeting place until its demolition in 1955.[5] While serving as rector of St. Paul's, Wilmer declined calls to serve other churches: St. John's, Lafayette Square, in 1817; and Monumental Church, Richmond, Virginia, in 1826. That year, Wilmer became President of The College of William and Mary and rector of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg.[6]

The founding of Virginia Theological Seminary
One of Wilmer's continuing concerns was the recruitment and education of clergy. In 1818, he founded the Society for the Education of Young Men for the Ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia and Maryland (Education Society). In 1823, after the Bishop of Maryland withdrew support for the Education Society and an effort to found a seminary in Williamsburg had failed, Wilmer and the Rev. Reuel Keith determined to hold classes in the St. Paul's lecture hall.[7]

The first class of 14 young men met in the St. Paul's lecture hall that year.[8] The founding of Virginia Theological Seminary is dated from those classes.[9]

War of 1812 and saving of Alexandria
Wilmer was part of a three-person delegation that parleyed with British Admiral George Cockburn during the Burning of Washington to save Alexandria from destruction. As result of the negotiations, Cockburn's troops burned Alexandria's docks, seized naval stores and looted warehouses, but did not burn the town.[10]

Sunday school
The St. Paul's Sunday school was organized in 1818. In England, Sunday schools began in order to educate the industrial poor. The schools taught reading, writing and rudiments of knowledge of the Bible and the liturgy. The Sunday school educated Negroes as well as Whites until the Virginia legislature forbad teaching reading to Negroes after Nat Turner's slave rebellion.[11]

Civil War

St. Paul's Church under military occupation, 1862
Virginia ceded Alexandria as part of the original organization of the District of Columbia, but demanded it back in 1846. The congregation of St. Paul's overwhelmingly supported the Confederacy after Virginia seceded from the Union. The rector at the time, George Hatley Norton, took leave to serve as chaplain with the 17th Virginia Infantry. Though he traveled to Lexington, Virginia, where he remained for the duration of the war, due to ill health, he never served with Confederate forces, but instead took the oath of allegiance to the Union imposed by the martial law authority.[12] Some of St. Paul's most promising youth, including Randolph Fairfax, confirmed in St. Paul's, died in arms as Confederate soldiers.[13]

Union troops occupied Alexandria immediately following the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the town remained subject to military occupation for the duration of the war, even after a loyalist Virginia government was organized in 1863.[14] Because the prayer book service made distinct mention of both the executive and the legislative departments of the government, Episcopal clergy were exposed to embarrassment whenever any part of the territory of the Confederate States was occupied by Union forces.[15]

An early and particularly notorious incident was the arrest of St. Paul's interim minister, the Rev. Dr. K. J. Stewart, in the sanctuary on February 9, 1862, by Union troops who attended with the stated purpose of provoking an incident.[16] During the Litany, Dr. Stewart was ordered by an attending Union officer to say the Prayer for the President of the United States that Dr. Stewart had omitted without saying any other prayer in its place. Dr. Stewart proceeded without paying any attention to the interruption; but a captain and six of his soldiers, who were present in the congregation to provoke an incident, drew their swords and pistols, strode into the chancel, seized the clergyman while he was still kneeling, held pistols to his head, and forced him out of the church, and through the streets, just as he was, in his surplice and stole, and committed him to the guard-house of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. Dr. Stewart was soon released, but was not allowed to continue to officiate at services.[17] Immediately thereafter, the St. Paul's sanctuary was closed and was used for the duration of the War as a hospital for the wounded.[18]

Members with Southern sympathies from St. Paul's, and also members from Christ Church, continued to meet in the St. Paul's lecture hall until it too was closed in 1863 and also used as a hospital until the end of the War in 1865.[19] When the church regained possession of its buildings in May 1865, they had suffered extensive damage. One month later, on June 23, 1865, the vestry submitted to the Federal occupation force a statement of charges for repairs to restore the church to its former condition. The church was not reimbursed until 1912 for these expenses.[20]

Bicentennial observances
In honor of the church's 200th anniversary, St. Paul's has commissioned bicentennial service music composed by William Bradley Roberts, a series of lectures by eminent scholars on various historical subjects relating to worship in the church and its architecture, as well as other celebrations. All of these events culminated in a visit from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori. In June 2009, the St. Paul's Choir went on a pilgrimage to England where it performed in St. Paul's Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, St. James's Church, Piccadilly, and other venues.[21]

St. Paul's and controversy in the Episcopal Church
19th-century liturgical controversy
St. Paul's' owes its inception at least in part to the liturgical controversy over vestments and liturgical details that roiled the Episcopal Church during much of the Nineteenth Century.[22] One of the offenses committed by the first rector of St. Paul's, William Lewis Gibson, before his abrupt resignation as rector of Christ Church and the resulting split in that congregation leading to the establishment of St. Paul's was that he chose to wear a white surplice over his cassock during services.[23]

By 1873, the controversy over vestments and ritual accoutrements had become so acute that the Diocese of Kentucky seceded from the Episcopal Church.[24] It is said that if Bishop Francis M. Whittle, Bishop of the Virginia Diocese, and well known in the Church for his opposition to "decorations" of any kind, had joined the schism, the Episcopal Church would have divided then as it had not in the Civil War.[25]

While services at St. Paul's now reflect the Broad Church consensus, services throughout the 19th century were notably less austere than at Christ Church. By the 1880s, the decorations on the St. Paul's altar were a stark contrast to Christ Church that attracted comment.[26] The divergent liturgical practices within the Diocese of Virginia and the intensity of feelings engendered by that controversy in its time are now recognized by some as precedent for dealing with current rifts in a tolerant and civil manner without schism.[27]

Civil War
The Civil War did not produce a formal division of the Episcopal Church, only a substitution of prayers for those in authority. Services in the Confederate States included prayers for the Confederate authorities rather than for the President of the United States.[28] The services otherwise remained the same. In the North, the General Convention of 1862 declined to adopt resolutions that would have denounced the Southern Churchmen as seditious and schismatical.[29]

Reconciliation within the Episcopal Church after the Civil War concluded was strained by the suffering and losses of life on both sides during that conflict, but helped to heal by mutual expressions of good will. Within a year of the end of the conflict the dioceses in the South had resolved to resume relations with the dioceses in the Union states.[30] A resolution in the Diocese of Virginia to resume relations with the national church was adopted overwhelmingly by both clergy and laity at a meeting of the diocese on May 16, 1866. The meeting that adopted the resolution convened at St. Paul's.[31]

Current rifts and controversies in the Anglican Communion
Two members of St. Paul's congregation, David Abshire, and The Very Rev. Ian Markham, priest associate and Dean, Virginia Theological Seminary, wrote in 2008 regarding the rifts in the Episcopal Church (United States) and the Anglican Communion arising from controversies in the previous few years. In urging a respect for civility, "respect, listening, dialogue, and the possibility of higher ground," Abshire and Markham suggest that civility does not mean giving up what are considered sacred values, but means "searching for transcendent values with which to advance the common good."[32]

With regard to an alleged abandonment of the final authority of scripture, sola scriptura, Abshire and Markham contend that the final authority of scripture in matters of faith and practice as historically understood in the Roman Catholic Church, in Anglicanism, and by Luther during the Reformation never meant literalism, but attention to the spiritual content of scripture. The literalism of fundamentalist Christianity, as articulated by American Baptists in the early Twentieth Century, is out of place, they contend, in the Anglican tradition, "which embraces both faith and reason and a sense of proportion." Anglicanism, they maintain, favors civility in dealing with differences.[33]

Architecture
Latrobe's design

St. Paul's Church Interior, 2008
The design of St. Paul's reflects a close collaboration between Latrobe as architect and William Holland Wilmer (1782–1827), the second rector of St. Paul's, from February 1812 until October 19, 1826. During his term as rector of St. Paul's, Wilmer also founded St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. and served between 1815 and 1817 as rector of that church also. It was during his term as rector of St. John's that Latrobe designed and supervised the construction of that church in a classical style.[34] Bushrod Washington, nephew of George Washington, Supreme Court Justice, and an active layman in the St. Paul's congregation may, as a friend of Latrobe, also have had a role in Latrobe's retention as architect by the St. Paul's vestry.[35]

Though mainly known for buildings executed in a neoclassical style, including the United States Capitol, the Baltimore Cathedral, and St. John's Episcopal Church, Latrobe had developed a Gothic plan for the Baltimore cathedral as an alternative to the Greco-Roman plan that was selected by Bishop Carroll.[36]

Latrobe's design for the St. Paul's façade derives from that rejected Gothic plan.[37] The three equal arches in the St. Paul's façade that rise the full height of the building below the gable create a shallow porch, through which the church is entered.[38] Though clearly differing in scale and ornamental elaboration, the façade is said to be reminiscent of Peterborough Cathedral.[37] Wilmer favored the Gothic style. Unlike a classical building, a church in Gothic style would recall the fervor of the Medieval English Church and would be free of "Popish" and pagan connotations.[39]

Latrobe conceived of the interior of the church as a preaching place like the Congregational meeting houses of New England. The preaching space was to be open, unencumbered by piers and columns, with a central pulpit centered on the east wall with only an alcove behind for a chancel.[40] As conceived by Latrobe, the interior of St. Paul's would afford all in the congregation an unobstructed view of a raised central pulpit in front of the altar.[41]

This pure conception was subverted during construction of St. Paul's. At the instigation of the vestry and over Latrobe's strident objections, the builder constructed galleries on the north, south and west sides of the church. Latrobe, however, was correct that members of the congregation in the galleries would be unable to see the pulpit. In 1872, the galleries were modified by raising the pews as if on steps specifically to address that limitation.[42]

With the galleries, St. Paul's is said to be similar to St. James Church, Piccadilly in its overall scheme and scale although simpler and different in architectural style from the Baroque architecture of that church.[43]

Later modifications
Over the course of the 19th century, the simplified liturgy with an emphasis on preaching that was prevalent in Virginia when St. Paul's was built gave way in the Episcopal Church and in St. Paul's to a greater emphasis on ritual.[44] By the late 1800s, the high pulpit in front of the altar had been replaced by a pulpit set to the side, and in 1906 the chancel alcove in the Latrobe design was recessed 40 feet.[45]

As a result of further change in liturgical emphasis to give the Eucharist a more central role in worship, the altar was moved in 1968 from the rear of the recessed chancel to its center. At that time, the organ in the chancel was replaced. A new organ constructed by Casavant Frères was installed in the West gallery.[46]

Throughout, the church façade has experienced only periodic repairs and has remained true to Latrobe's design.[47]

Organ
Casavant Frères Ltée. (Opus 2972, 1968)

Technical Details: Chests: Electro-pneumatic (EP) 41 ranks. 1,972 pipes. 3 divisions. 2 manuals. 32 stops. 32 registers.

The church's cemetery is located about a half-mile away, adjacent to other cemeteries. It was established in 1909.[48] Notable interments are:

Female Stranger – Historical oddity in Alexandra, Virginia, US (1793–1816)[49][50]
Abraham Myers – United States and Confederate States Army officer (1811–1889)[51]