Father Pitt

Category: Woodville

  • Old St. Luke’s Church

    Sign for Old Saint Luke’s Church

    Built in 1852 for a congregation established in 1765, Old St. Luke’s is a picturesque country church with a churchyard stuffed with Revolutionary War veterans. For some time it was abandoned and falling to bits, but over the past few decades careful restoration has gradually turned it into a picture-perfect wedding chapel. Much work has recently been put into the churchyard, with illegible tombstones supplemented by new granite monuments that duplicate the old inscriptions.

    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Plaque honoring General John Neville

    This plaque honors congregation founder John Neville, George Washington’s childhood friend and the man who, as tax collector for the district, found himself on the wrong side of the Whiskey Rebellion. His house at Bower Hill was burned by the rebels. The plaque was installed only when everyone who would have spat on it was dead.

    Witness Tree

    This huge oak is probably as old as the congregation, and certainly older than the present building. It was recently recognized as a “witness tree”—a tree that has seen the whole history of the United States from the beginning. Wisely, the tree keeps its opinions on that history to itself.

    Plaque for the Witness Tree
    Witness Tree
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Sony Alpha 3000; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    Comments

  • Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church, Scott Township

    Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church

    This little country church in the village of Woodville kept going when its neighbor, Old St. Luke’s, was abandoned and crumbling. But now the tables are turned: Old St. Luke’s has been gradually restored and is now associated with a rich Episcopalian congregation, whereas the Presbyterians have given up—and their building has been bought by the owners of Old St. Luke’s. It is now officially the Annex of Old St. Luke’s Church.

    Rear of the church
    Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.
    Comments

  • Old St. Luke’s

    Father Pitt never needs an excuse to offer yet another picture of Old St. Luke’s, one of our most picturesque country churches. The current building dates from 1852, but the congregation goes back to colonial times, and was the epicenter of the Whiskey Rebellion.

    Camera: Canon PowerShot A590 (hacked).

  • Woodville Plantation

    Under layers of later accretions is a Revolution-era house that belonged to the Neville family. When General Neville, an old Washington crony, was appointed collector of the Washington administration’s very unpopular whiskey tax in 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion broke out: rioters burned Bower Hill, General Neville’s home, and he fled for his life to this house, which belonged to his son.

    This was a southern gentleman’s house: the Nevilles were from Virginia, and settled here in Yohogania County when Virginia claimed this part of the world. They kept slaves in the 1700s; Pennsylvania abolished slavery in stages.

    The house has been lovingly restored and is now a museum open Sunday afternoons. Inside, among many treasures, is an original 1815 Clementi pianoforte, bought for the house in 2006.

  • Old St. Luke’s

    This colonial-era congregation in what is now Scott Township found itself at the center of the Whiskey Rebellion, which began when General John Neville, a church member and an old pal of President Washington’s, was appointed tax collector. The current stone building was put up in 1852, but the congregation was founded in 1765.

  • Old St. Luke’s, Woodville

    KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

    Old St. Luke’s Church in the little village of Woodville (an unincorporated part of Scott Township) was founded in 1765. It was stuck in the middle of the Whiskey Rebellion, which divided the congregation, one of whose members was General John Neville, a tax collector who barely escaped with his life. (Woodville Plantation, the house to which he escaped, is still standing nearby.)

    The current building dates from 1852. In the burying ground surrounding the little stone church are some very old graves, including some Revolutionary War veterans and “the first white child born in the Chartiers Valley.” The oldest stones were native shale, which is a very poor material for gravestones; but some of the obliterated inscriptions have been duplicated in plaques beside the stones.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
    2013-10-27-Old-St-Lukes-01
    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
    KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
    2013-10-27-Old-St-Lukes-02
    KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
    Old St. Luke’s

  • Tombstone at Old St. Luke’s

    This 1849 tombstone in Old St. Luke’s churchyard, Woodville, is the work of an unusually talented stonecutter. The calligraphic styles of middle-nineteenth-century penmanship have been imitated precisely in the stone.