Monumental UMC Officially Entered in the National Register of Historic PlacesOn January 15, 2004, Monumental was officially entered in the National Register of Historic Places. Our present sanctuary, which was finished in 1876, is the work of a master architect, Albert West. The walls and foundations of the present sanctuary include significant portions of our previous church, which was finished in the 1830s and burned accidentally during the Civil War.
Having been begun by Methodist missionaries Robert Williams and Joseph Pilmore in November 1772, Monumental is one of the longest continuing United Methodist congregations in the nation and we have kept a significant number of our records and books. We have also added significantly to our community and nation.
Margaret Windley notes, "I can't emphasize enough that we are one of the longest continuing in the nation, not just the south. We are not just regional!"
FROM THE MARCH 22, 1873 EDITION OF THE NORFOLK VIRGINIAN, PAGE 4The new Methodist Church to be built by the congregation of Dinwiddie Street station on the site of the old church accidentally destroyed by fire in the Winter of 1864 is to be an elegant modern style edifice, and will cost, when fully completed in every feature, between twenty five and thirty thousand dollars. The trustees of the church have adopted plans prepared by Albert D. West, Esq., of Richmond, and on Thursday night the drawings were exhibited to the members of the church and fully explained by James H. Toomer, Esq., secretary of the board of trustees. All who were present at the meeting were delighted with the prospective of their new church, and were doubtless greatly encouraged in their determination to exert every proper means to enable the completion. Proposals to builders will be submitted next week, and it is thought the walls of the structure will be up and the roof on by the termination of the spring months.
The design of the building is to be Gothic. The spire will be thrown forward on the front and one hundred and seventy five feet high, with a base twenty feet or more thick, which will form a vestibule to the body of the church, and through it will run one main and two lateral entrances. The interior will be arranged with four aisles, two in the centre and one along side each wall. There will be six tiers of circular pews, after the convenient order of the auditorium of the Opera House. From the vestibule two doors will open into the body of the church. The galleries will be narrow on the sides and have a circular or arc formation, and will be supported by heavy brackets, thus doing away with cumbrous columns. The pulpit will project considerably into the body of the church, bringing the preacher in close proximity to all his congregation, and allowing the amplest room for the communion service. The building will be heated by a furnace, and the exterior will be handsomely stuccoed. An effort will also be made to a chime of bells arranged in the steeple after the completion of the edifice in every other particular. The plans are exceedingly handsome, and if carried out to the letter the Dinwiddie Street Station will own one of the handsomest Methodist churches in Virginia.
FROM OCTOBER 24, 1833 COPY OF THE AMERICAN BEACON, PAGE 3
RELIGIOUS NOTICEThe friends of Missions, and the public in general in the Towns of Norfolk and Portsmouth, are respectfully informed that on Sunday next, the 27th inst. at half past 3 o’clock, P.M. in the new M. E. Church in Portsmouth, a Missionary Meeting will be held, at which our beloved brothers, SPAULDING and WRIGHT, will be present and deliver addresses, after which a collection will be taken up to aid the Mission to Africa, in which they are being embarked. At night on the same inst. a similar meeting will be held in the Presbyterian Church, in this place, Norfolk.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MONUMENTAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCHby Margaret Windley
In the winter or spring of 1772 our church, now known as Monumental United Methodist, got started in Portsmouth. These are just a few of the stories of our members. During the years of our church's existence, we have been known by several different names. For ease of expression, however, it will just be referred to throughout this paper by its current name, Monumental Methodist.
Monumental got its start with the visit of a Methodist missionary, Rev. Robert Williams. He preached first in Norfolk to a crowd that got out of hand, but Isaac Luke, a Portsmouth man, had heard him and was impressed with what he had to say. Mr. Luke brought him to his home in Portsmouth where he allowed him to preach from the porch of his house on Court Street and in his shed as well.
We count our church's founding, however, from the date that Rev. Joseph Pilmore, another Methodist missionary, marked in his journal for starting a Methodist society in Portsmouth in a private home, November 14, 1772. Pilmore just happened to be better organized than Williams, who did not apparently write down the date that he started his work in Portsmouth.
Anyway, these days, the Bill of Rights guarantees everybody freedom of religion. But in Colonial America, there was no such thing as freedom of religion. Everybody was supposed to belong to the Church of England, were expected to attend regularly and to pay taxes for its upkeep. Voters as well as government officials could come only from the ranks of members of the Church of England. Because the Methodist church got its start as a prayer group within the Church of England, Methodist clergy and members had less trouble with the authorities during Colonial times than did other denominations such as the Baptists, Quakers and Catholics.
Isaac Luke and his family, friends and neighbors became the first members of our church. At various times they would listen to Williams preach during the winter and early spring. Williams soon graduated from the Lukes' porch to their shed in back of the house. One early member, Elizabeth, Isaac Luke's daughter, developed a friendship with another member, William Porter. This soon blossomed into love. By the time of the Revolution he gave her a diamond engagement ring. After the war they got married and raised a family.
However, that poor engagement ring had quite a sad history even though the marriage was good. The ring figures in one of the stories about the rudeness of the British soldiers who were quartered in the house in 1781 during the city's British occupation.
One of the officers fell in love with the ring and chased Elizabeth all over the house for it. She headed for the back porch, slipped the ring off her hand and tossed it in the bushes. Unfortunately, she never was able to find it again. That was her story and she stuck to it.
About the same time, the soldiers got broke into the family's wine cellar and got drunk. They broke the bottles afterward and made Isaac walk over the broken glass.
In the U.S. Constitution, Americans are guaranteed freedom from having soldiers quartered in their homes. That's because there were many similar stories from the Revolution like that of Elizabeth and her family.
In 1832 Portsmouth suffered from a cholera epidemic. Since medicine was very simple and doctors were few, members of the clergy were known to double as doctors. Monumental's minister that year, the Rev. Vernon Eskridge, set up his unofficial headquarters under a tree in the center of town to make himself available for those in need of his services. He equipped himself not only with prayers but also with food and medicine. He had chosen that particular tree so that people in need of his assistance would know where to find him. He would visit the sick, pray for them, give them food and medicine and return to his tree to wait until the next person came for help.
He went on to serve another church, then returned to Portsmouth to serve as Monumental's assistant minister from 1838 to about 1850. As part of his duties, he was the superintendent of the Sunday school, which provided education to the children of the members of Monumental as well as the members of the church that would become known as Emanuel AME (African Methodist Episcopal). In those days, Emanuel was the church for the African American members of Monumental.
In 1855 the Yellow Fever Epidemic brought Portsmouth down. Between the summer and fall of that year, the city lost ten percent of its population. Rev. Eskridge was one of those who died in the service of God and humanity. Other heroic clergy of different churches in the city died for the same cause in the Yellow Fever epidemic as well. These included Father Devlin of St. Paul's Catholic Church and Rev. James Chisholm of St. John's Episcopal as well as two elders of First Presbyterian, Lewis Boutwell and Dr. John Trugien.
Then came the Civil War. One of our members, John Luke Porter, designed the Merrimac (CSS Virginia) the first ironclad specifically built for purposes of war.
Not long after the battle of the ironclads in March of 1862, the city was taken over by the Northern forces and the Occupation continued until the end of the war.
Hannah Frances Veale, a Portsmouth girl and member of Monumental, was a little girl of aobut eight years old when the city went under the Occupation. One day she was returning home from the post office with a letter from her 12-year old brother, Amos Veale, a drummer boy in the Confederate army when a Yankee soldier grabbed it from her in an attempt to harrass her. She hit him with her umbrella and got into trouble. Her representative in court was her grandfather, Amos Edwards (her father had died in the yellow fever epidemic). She was pardoned, so the story goes, because the Military Commandant, Gen. Egbert Viele, was moved by the similarity of pronunciation of their last names.
During the Occupation, Monumental burned down in November of 1864 because of a defective flue. In 1866 our church was able to collect $6,000 on its insurance policy. The trustees did not feel that the sum was enough to rebuild as beautifully as before. So they built a chapel on the back of the lot and it became the nucleus of the Sunday School building when they rebuilt during the years 1872 to 1876.
MONUMENTAL'S OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY
We celebrate November 14, 1772 as Monumental's official founding date. That was the first known mention of our people as an operating Methodist congregation. This comes from the Journal of Joseph Pilmore, at that time a Methodist missionary (spelling, capitalization and punctuation from the original):
"On Tuesday morning returned to Portsmouth, and at night had a vast multitude to hear me read and explain the Rules of the Society, and when I had done, as they had been deeply convinced of their need of a saviour, and are truely desirous to flee from the Wrath to come, I joined 27 of them who are determined to seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him when he is near." Page 162, The Journal of Joseph Pilmore, Methodist Itinerant, for the years August 1, 1769 to January 2, 1774, editors Frederick E. Maser and Howard T. Maag, Philadelphia: Message Publishing Co., 1969.
