Old Providence Stone Church is a historic church in Spottswood, Virginia in

Augusta County, Virginia Augusta County is a county in the Shenandoah Valley on the western edge of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The second-largest county of Virginia by total area, it completely surrounds the independent cities of Staunton and Waynesboro. Its county ...

. A log structure was built in the area by 1743 for early settlers known as the South Mountain Meeting House. In 1746 the congregation split, and the stone building was built in 1793 on land donated by Patrick and Susana Hall. In 1844,

Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC), as it exists today, is the historical descendant of the Synod of the South, a Synod of the Associate Reformed Church. The original Associate Reformed Church resulted from a merger of the Associate ...

of the South. In 1859, a new building was built for services, and a school used the stone building until the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, and then a store and residence. From 1888 it was used as a high school for the valley until the early 20th century, and then a meeting room until a fire in 1959 destroyed the interior. The building is a simple gable structure with thick walls, about wide and long. It was added to the National Register on December 5, 1972. an
''Accompanying photo''
/ref> Robert McCormick (1780–1846), patriarch of the

McCormick family The McCormick family of Chicago and Virginia is an American family of Scottish and Scotch-Irish descent that attained prominence and fortune starting with the invention of the McCormick Reaper, a machine that revolutionized agriculture, helped b ...

which includes

Cyrus McCormick Cyrus Hall McCormick (February 15, 1809 – May 13, 1884) was an American inventor and businessman who founded the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which later became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902. Originally from the ...

, is buried in the cemetery, along with other members of the family. The McCormick Estate just to the south is now a historic museum and experimental farm. The parents of sewing machine inventor

James Edward Allen Gibbs James Edward Allen Gibbs (1829–1902) was a farmer, inventor, and businessman from Rockbridge County in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. On June 2, 1857, he was awarded a patent for the first twisted chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine u ...

are also buried in the small stone walled cemetery near the old church. A new church and larger modern cemetery are across the State Route 919 (known as "Old Providence Road) to the east.

References

External links

* Presbyterian churches in Virginia Churches completed in 1793 Churches in Augusta County, Virginia Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Stone churches in Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Augusta County, Virginia 18th-century churches in the United States 1793 establishments in Virginia {{Virginia-church-stub