Gerrardstown Presbyterian Church and Session House

Gerrardstown Presbyterian Church and Session House

Gerrardstown Presbyterian Church and Session House West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
c. 1793, session house. 1892, church. West side of Congress St., southwest of the Hays-Gerrard House

A pleasant white-painted brick building with round-arched windows on its side walls and a large, Gothic-arched window on the facade, the church is picturesquely sited at a bend in the road on the southwest edge of town. Several corbeled courses of brick terminate the brick portion of the gabled facade, which is shingled above. A spired tower with the entrance in its base contains a stone with the inscription “Built 1793, rebuilt 1892.” The earlier date refers to a predecessor church on the same site. A limestone cornerstone from the Cool Spring Church (1760), the area's earliest Presbyterian church, rests in the front yard. The small stone session house, which stands demurely in the side yard, is thought to date from the last years of the eighteenth century.

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