Hebron Church (Intermont, West Virginia)

Hebron Church (also historically known as Great Capon Church, Hebron Lutheran Church, and Hebron Evangelical Lutheran Church) is a mid-19th-century Lutheran church in Intermont, Hampshire County, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Hebron Church was founded in 1786 by German settlers in the Cacapon River Valley, making it the first Lutheran church west of the Shenandoah Valley. The congregation worshiped in a log church, which initially served both Lutheran and Reformed denominations. Its congregation was originally German-speaking; the church's documents and religious services were in German until 1821, when records and sermons transitioned to English.

The church's congregation built the present Greek Revival-style -story church building in 1849, when it was renamed Hebron on the Cacapon. The original log church was moved across the road and subsequently used as a sexton's house, Sunday school classroom, and public schoolhouse (attended by future West Virginia governor Herman G. Kump).

To celebrate the congregation's 175th anniversary in 1961, Hebron Church constructed a brick community and religious education building designed to be architecturally compatible with the 1849 brick church. As of October 2015, the church continues to be used by the West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Hebron Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 16, 2014, for its architectural distinction as a local example of vernacular Greek Revival church architecture in the Potomac Highlands.

Geography and setting

Hebron Church and its cemetery are located east of Carpers Pike (West Virginia Route 259) in the unincorporated community of Intermont, about southwest of Yellow Spring, and northeast of the town of Wardensville. Capon Lake and the Capon Lake Whipple Truss Bridge are northeast of the church. The church and its cemetery are on a lot.

Hebron Church is on the plain of a predominantly rural agricultural and forested area of southeastern Hampshire County, in the Cacapon River Valley. Baker Mountain, a forested, narrow anticlinal mountain ridge, rises west of the church, and the western rolling foothills of the anticlinal Great North Mountain rise east of the valley. The Cacapon River, just southeast of the church, is hidden from the church and cemetery by mature foliage. George Washington National Forest, encompassing the forested area east of the Cacapon River, is east of the church.

The National Register of Historic Places listing for Hebron Church includes the brick church and cemetery. They are accessible from WV 259 by a semicircular asphalt driveway, separated from the church and cemetery by a wrought iron fence and lined with large, old-growth maple trees along the property's northwestern perimeter. A paved brick walkway leads from the gate to the northwestern façade and two main entrances of the church. The church is surrounded on its northeastern, southeastern, and southwestern sides by a cemetery which is still in use. The cemetery contains over 600 gravestones, several yuccas, a hemlock tree, and a boxwood. A modern brick community building, within the historic boundary south of the church and cemetery, is used for church activities.

History

Background

The land upon which Hebron Church and its cemetery are located was originally part of the Northern Neck Proprietary, a land grant that the exiled Charles II awarded to seven of his supporters in 1649 during the English Interregnum. Following the Restoration in 1660, Charles II finally ascended to the English throne. Charles II renewed the Northern Neck Proprietary grant in 1662, revised it in 1669, and again renewed the original grant favoring original grantee Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper and Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington in 1672. In 1681, Bennet sold his share to Lord Colepeper, and Lord Colepeper received a new charter for the entire land grant from James II in 1688. Following the deaths of Lord Colepeper, his wife Margaret, and his daughter Katherine, the Northern Neck Proprietary passed to Katherine's son Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron in 1719.

Under Lord Fairfax's ownership, the Cacapon River Valley was predominantly inhabited by English-speaking settlers as early as the late 1730s; most came from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. As settlement progressed during the second half of the 18th century, the fertile land of Hampshire County (including the Cacapon River Valley) also attracted German settlers from Pennsylvania and elsewhere in Virginia before and after the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).

Establishment

As the population of German settlers in the region began to increase, the desire for Lutheran religious services and education also grew. Ministers, including Henry Muhlenberg disciple Christian Streit, began to establish congregations in the largest communities of western Virginia. Muhlenberg was a German pastor, requested by colonists in Pennsylvania, who served as a missionary there from 1742 until his death in 1787; he is considered the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in the United States. Johannes Schwarback and Muhlenberg's son, Peter, reportedly visited the Cacapon River Valley between 1763 and 1776 (before Hebron Church's founding). Streit, charged with ministering to a Lutheran congregation in Winchester, settled there on July 19, 1785.

Hebron Church, originally known as the Great Capon Church, was established by early German settlers in 1786 as a united German congregation of the Reformed and Lutheran denominations. The congregation was also known as the German Churches, since it served both denominations. In its earliest days, the church was served by pastors connected with congregations in the Shenandoah Valley. Streit incorporated the church into his circuit shortly after its founding, regularly traveling to the Cacapon River Valley for baptisms and weddings, but his ministry did not extend west of Cooper Mountain. According to the oldest extant church record, six people were confirmed in the Lutheran Synod and nine confirmed in the German Reformed Church in November 1786. On September 23, 1787, seven more people were confirmed in the Lutheran Synod; the church's enrollment then began to increase.

Early religious services were held in the log church on land deeded to Reformed trustee Jacob Huber and Lutheran trustee John Nicholas Schweitzer, both of whom were church elders in 1786. The deed conveying the land to the trustees specified that it was to be used for a German church and burial yard. The united congregation became Hebron Church, the first Lutheran church west of the Shenandoah Valley.

While the Reformed and Lutheran congregations used the log church, they were ministered by two pastors. Abraham Gottlieb Deschler ministered to the Lutherans, and Jacob Rebas (or Repass) ministered to the Reformed congregation until the latter dissolved around 1813. Although the church served both denominations, it was later served by one minister (Reformed or Lutheran). Originally a German-speaking congregation, its documents and religious services were in German until 1821 (an early transition to English for a German denomination in the United States). By that time, under the pastorship of Abraham Reck (1812–21), the congregation was known as Capon Church.

Construction

The congregation of Great Capon Church built the present one-and-a-half-story Lutheran church building in 1849, when it was briefly renamed Hebron on the Cacapon after the Scriptural Hebron (the city associated with Judah, Abraham, and Isaac). The church was later known simply as Hebron Church.

The brick church was constructed east of the original log structure, which was located to the west of the present community building. The 1849 church was originally topped by a wooden shake roof, and its windows had double-hung wooden sashes. Its pews were built by Alfred Brill, Jacob Himmelwright and Frederick Secrist with lumber milled by Brill. The church was constructed under the ministry of H. J. Richardson (1848–53).

The log church was moved from its original location in the south corner of the cemetery to a hill across the road from the brick church. It was used as a sexton's house for the church, and was a Sunday school classroom for about 30 years. In addition to religious instruction, the log building was a public schoolhouse. Future West Virginia governor Herman G. Kump and his brother, the judge Garnett Kerr Kump, received part of their primary education in the schoolhouse. By 1885, a Mr. Miller was teaching business principles at the school. The log building succumbed to the elements, and no longer exists.

Later history

Peter Miller ministered to the congregation at Hebron Church four times, for a total of 25 years, between 1858 and 1918. Licensed in 1858 and ordained in 1860, Miller engaged in missionary work for rural congregants in the Capon and North River Parish of Hampshire and Hardy counties for 60 years. He established many of the area's Lutheran churches and, according to the North Carolina Synod of the Lutheran Church in America, was "an outstanding figure in this large, mountainous, thinly populated territory, who for sixty years almost continuously was recognized as everybody's pastor". By 1867, the church membership was 106, its largest congregation to date.

On October 13, 1879, a post office was established near Hebron Church to serve the adjacent community (then known as Mutton Run). In December 1884, the church roof caught fire from an adjacent flue, burning a hole through the sanctuary's ceiling which was soon repaired. On August 11–15, 1886, Hebron Church celebrated its centennial. During the celebration, Miller read a complete history of the German churches in the region. The centennial was reportedly the first of any Lutheran congregation in the southern United States.

The wrought-iron fence along the church driveway was installed in April 1895, replacing a picket fence. In 1905, the church's wood roof was replaced with a metal one, the present stained-glass windows were installed, its interior and woodwork were painted, and new lamps were installed for better illumination. The stained-glass windows were supplied by Madison Alling of Newark, New Jersey

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