Historic Christ Church
The first church erected at the site was a wooden building, the construction of which was funded by powerful landowner John Carter in 1670. Carter died before the construction was completed but was buried on the church grounds alongside four of his five wives. John Carter’s son Robert, a wealthy vestryman and planter, decided that the parish deserved a more substantial place of worship and, in 1730, funded and supervised the construction of a brick building on the approximate foundations of the old wooden church.
Established by law and supported by taxation, the Church of England was the official religion of colonial Virginia. Church life revolved around the parish, a geographical area that supported a minister and functioned as a unit of local government. All Virginians were members of a parish and were taxed to support it. Like the county courthouse, the parish church served as an important center of the community.
By 1665, Christ Church Parish had formed as one of several parishes in Lancaster County. Residents were dispersed and diverse and included young and old, male and female, black and white, rich and poor, enslaved and free, planter and tradesman, landowner and tenant, native and immigrant. The parish was central to daily life, and many never traveled beyond its boundaries.
The Carter connection to Christ Church began with Robert “King” Carter’s father, John. Born in London, England in 1613, John sailed to Virginia in 1635 and later settled in Lancaster County, where he established the Corotoman plantation and became a prominent tobacco planter, merchant, and political figure.
Corotoman was first inhabited by the Cuttatwomen Native American tribe several hundred years before the arrival of English colonists to Lancaster County, Virginia. Corotoman is the English translation or conversion of the name.
John Carter built the first Christ Church on this site, a frame structure that was completed in July 1670, six months after his death. John was buried in the chancel of the original Christ Church, along with four of his five wives and two of his six children. Today, his grave marker lies in the the chancel of the 1735 Christ Church.
Robert Carter was born at the Corotoman plantation in 1663 and attended school in London, where he learned the trans-Atlantic tobacco trade. In 1690, Robert inherited his father’s Corotoman plantation, ultimately making it the center of a vast estate that would encompass forty-eight plantations, 300,000 acres, and over 700 slaves.
Robert’s prodigious influence continued through his numerous offspring, who include three signers of the Declaration of Independence, two presidents, eight Virginia governors, General Robert E. Lee, a Supreme Court justice, and more than 20,000 other descendants.
