Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Dedication of sign and cornerstone at the site of St. Andrew's, Victoria

On Sunday, July 10 at 1 p.m., a memorial sign and cornerstone will be dedicated at the site where St. Andrew's, Victoria, once stood. In 1995, St.Andrew's joined St. Paul's to become the Episcopal Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew in Kenbridge. In May 2014, the St. Andrew's church building burned. It was secularized and demolished in 2015. The memorial sign reads:

"St. Andrew's Episcopal Church was erected here in 1921. in October of 1908, Reverend Girard William Phelps, who came to Victoria from North Carolina, who had been appointed to mission work in the Victoria area by The Right Reverend Beverley D. Tucker, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of southern Virginia. Reverend Phelps first held services in St. Paul's, the "old brick" Episcopal Church, one and one-half miles north of Victoria on the Crewe Road. The original St. Andrew's Episcopal Church structure was built in 1908 at First Street and Lunenburg Avenue in Victoria. The Reverend Herbert H. Young arrived in 1916 to assist. Mr. Phelps died in 1918. Mr. Young continued as rector of the Parish until 1921, and it was during his tenure that a larger, brick St. Andrew's was built on this corner of Ninth St. and Washington Ave. in 1921. This marker memorializes those early Episcopalian priests and all who worshiped here through out the twentieth century. In 1995 St. Andrew's joined St. Paul's to become the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew of Kenbridge. Sadly, the St. Andrew's church building burned in May 2014, and was subsequently secularized and demolished in August of 2015."