Christ Episcopal Church and Cemetery

Christ Episcopal Church in Napoleonville, Louisiana is significant locally for several reasons. It exemplifies the typical mid-nineteenth-century Episcopal church established in Louisiana by Bishop Leonidas K. Polk and is unusual for the important role it played in a predominantly Catholic section of the state. church is a good example of the Gothic Revival style, in this case reminiscent of English village churches. It was designed by an important New York Gothic Revivalist, Frank Wills. During the Civil War, Christ Church was used as a barracks for Union troops and then as a stable for their horses. The stained glass was used for target practice, and then the fire left the Church a ruin. Many prominent church and community leaders are buried in Christ Church Cemetery.

In his episcopal address delivered in 1834 at a convention held at Grace Church in St. Francisville, Bishop Polk, who had had a year to study the problems of the Diocese of Louisiana, identified a four-fold challenge: (1) to make divine services available in English to a part of the country which had known only those in Latin, (2) to establish parishes among those settlers who had been Episcopalians before migrating to Louisiana, (3) to bring into the Church those as yet unchurched, and (4) to provide a ministry to the Negro population." In the score of years during which Bishop Polk labored as a diocesan in Louisiana, the number of church buildings increased from three to thirty- three; the congregations from six to forty-seven for Caucasians and more than thirty for Negroes; the clergy from six to thirty-two; and the communicants from 222 to 1,859. The congregations of Negroes included 3,600 persons. Church, which was the nineteenth or twentieth edifice to be built during his episcopacy, illustrates well the success of Bishop Polk's efforts in the decade before the Civil War began. The history of Christ Church also constitutes a good response to Bishop Polk's four-fold challenge.

Soon after Bishop Polk resigned as Missionary Bishop of Arkansas with the supervision of the Dioceses of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama and episcopal oversight of the Republic of Texas to become the first Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana in 1841, he settled upon Bayou Lafourche at Leighton Plantation. He encouraged his plantation neighbors and friends, formerly members of the Episcopal Church in such places as Virginia and North Carolina, to meet together for Episcopal services with the intention of forming a permanent congregation. The Reverend Mr. J. F. Young, later Bishop of Florida, had already begun his work as an Episcopal Minister in the Bayou Lafourche area. on July 18, 1842, with two communicants. Then Bishop Polk himself conducted the first Episcopal services in Napoleonville on Sunday, June 25, 1843, at the Assumption Court House. The steadily increasing group of communicants continued to meet intermittently in the Court House until 1853. During this period services were held for the Negroes on the plantations of the Parish.

With a direct and continuing concern for the creation of an Episcopal parish in Assumption, Bishop Polk presided at the organizational meeting of Christ Church, held ten years after its first services. On January 10, 1853, a Constitution was adopted and the first vestry was elected. Bishop Polk later spoke of the formal organization of the Parish "under circumstances of great encouragement. Preparations were made to build such a church as will be in some measure appropriate for one of the wealthiest communities in the State to present as an offering to God."

Soon after the organizational meeting of Christ Church, Mr. Frank Wills, an Englishman then residing in New York City, was engaged to draw plans for Christ Church." He was the architect for the New York Ecclesiological Society which promoted the building of churches in the manner of the English parish church of medieval times. He is known to have designed one other church in Louisiana Trinity Church in Natchitoches. Mr. George Ament was engaged to build the church and was later buried in the cemetery behind the church. Dr. Ebeneezer Eaton Kittredge, originally from New Hampshire, donated a corner of his Elm Hall Plantation for the church and cemetery. Col. (of the Assumption Militia) William Whitmell Pugh of Woodlawn Plantation donated the cypress and handmade bricks of which the church was built, as well as the labor. Evidently, Bishop Polk was very pleased with the progress of this particular parish, for he wrote:

"Within little more than a year...and that year one of the great depression from a widely spread epidemic, the friends of the church in the Parish of Assumption have organized themselves into a parish; and raised, exclusively among themselves, for the support of their minister and the building of their church, above $9,500. That church is completed and it is the most beautiful edifice of its kind I have ever seen in the Southern or Western country. Its style is Gothic and very pure for its period. And its entire arrangement, within and without, exceedingly appropriate, beautiful, and in the best of taste."

In addition to Dr. Kittredge and Col. Pugh, the first vestry consisted of George Washinton Jones, a prominent planter of Glenwood Plantation, who served as Junior Warden for many years; Alexander Franklin Pugh, manager of the extensive Augustin-Bellevue-Whitmell plantation holdings in the northern part of Assumption Parish; Edward F. Pugh of Pothier Plantation, son of Thomas and Eliza Foley Pugh of Madewood Plantation; R. Sparks, of the family of the outstanding State Senator Colonel W. H. Sparks, and William Reed Mills, the secretary, who was an attorney formerly from Vermont. Col. Pugh was elected Senior Warden and continued to serve in this capacity until a few years before his death in 1906, at the age of 95.

The original subscription contained the names of twenty-one persons, some of whom were not Episcopalians, but residents of the community - some even Roman Catholics who wished to participate in an undertaking that promised "so great a good" for the whole community. In this predominantly French-speaking community of Napoleonville, little more than a village at the time, Christ Church served not only to provide a means of worship for those of the Protestant persuasion, but also served as a focal point and gathering place for the English- speaking people of the Parish, or "Americans", as they were called.

The formal organization of Christ Church, ten years in the making, came quickly to fruition in the building of the church and the consecration of its sanctuary on May 10, 1854, presided over by Bishop Polk. After this auspicious beginning Christ Church continued to serve its community through the efforts of prominent leaders and lay people.

The Rev. Mr. J. F. Young resigned in 1855 and then several other rectors served for the few years before the Civil War. In 1860 there were twenty white communicants and twenty Negro communicants. When the Civil War came, Bishop Polk left to become a Major-General in the Confederate Army, during which service he lost his life.

During the War, Christ Church was used as a barracks for Federal troops from Ohio and Indiana and then as a stable for their horses. The stained glass windows were used for marksmanship practice and in the end, the fire left the church a ruin." Bishop Wilmer, visiting the church in 1867 and holding services in the Assumption Court House, described Christ Church as a "naked ruin" and said "...The inscriptions left upon the charred walls of this holy and beautiful house remain to attest the worth of popular education when not restrained by reverence for God and religion." Bishop Wilmer was encouraged upon this visit, however, "with the many proofs of their sound instruction in the faith, and their intense desire to welcome the advent of a minister of Christ, and the restoration of their church from its ruins."

Although greatly impoverished by the Civil War, the congregation of Christ Church began the work of restoration immediately and soon made the building available for public worship. By 1869 they welcomed Bishop Wilmer within their own walls, and he declared that "They were persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed."

Scarcely was the edifice made habitable, however, then it was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Again it was abandoned. As early as 1870, under the leadership of the rector, the Rev. Mr. Charles A. Cameron, restoration of the church edifice was taken
anew.