Christ Church, Vicksburg
Driving to Hot Springs last week, we stopped overnight at Vicksburg, Mississippi because of family history with the city. As a girl, Linda’s great-grandmother was wounded during General Ulysses S. Grant’s Siege of Vicksburg, May 18-July 4, 1863. The family story was that she was shot in the leg with a rifle ball while defiantly raising the Confederate flag over the courthouse.
A generation earlier, George Weller, my great-great-grandfather was the first rector of Christ Church, Vicksburg, the first Episcopal parish in the city.
We visited the church after hours and were given a tour by a parishioner who just happened to be there when we knocked at the door.
The gentleman who greeted us was knowledgable of the church’s history and proudly showed us the lovely old edifice.
Commemorative marble plaques honor early rectors.
The window to the left of the cross is in memory of my ancestor, who died November 6, 1841, just a week short of his 51st birthday, in a yellow fever epidemic. His picture is in a gallery of CCV rectors in the undercroft.
In a little treasure trove that in our family is called “the Weller memorabilia” I have the sermons of George Weller. He wrote them out in longhand, folded and had them stitched for a binding, and on the outside front cover he wrote the name and date of each church where he preached them, supposedly to make sure he didn’t preach them more than once in the same church. The marking CCV, for example, tells he preached it at Christ Church, Vicksburg.
We enjoyed seeing Vicksburg, but found a city that seems to have had its history and charm swamped and eclipsed and its character remade by the gambling casino trade.
While researching Christ Church on my iPad as Linda drove toward Vicksburg, a fascinating history came up. The link is below.
Besides the mention of George Weller, two things caught my eye. During the Christmas 1863 service -- this was six months after the siege and surrender of the city and many soldiers of the occupying Union army were present at the service -- the Rev. W. W. Lord, CCV rector, prayed for the President of the United States instead of the President of the Confederacy. At this, several Southern ladies stormed out of the service -- which offended the Union general who was present. The next day the general ordered those ladies out of the city and banished them from the area.
Soon after, Rev. Lord abruptly left the church and city and made his way east to join the Confederate army as a chaplain. In 1868, three years after the War, he returned to Vicksburg asking to be reinstated as rector. Meantime, another priest had been called and installed. Trying to compromise, CCV had two priests for a while, but this caused factions, and Rev. Lord led his loyalist group to form Holy Trinity, Vicksburg, just a few blocks away. Sounds like any Christian church in any day and age.
TW+