DATE: Monday, September 22, 1997            TAG: 9709191182

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   27 lines

EASTERN SHORE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL

The third Eastern Shore Episcopal Chapel was built in 1755 on the

site of the second chapel by the same name on land provided by the

Cornick family of Salisbury Plains plantation. The plantation was

near what eventually became the village of Oceana. According to

``Princess Anne County and Virginia Beach: A Pictorial History'' by

Stephen S. Mansfield, the first chapel had been built in the 1660s

in the Great Neck area to spare worshipers the trouble to travel on

Sundays to the original Lynnhaven Parish Church that was on the

other side of the Lynnhaven River. This 1880 picture shows the third

Eastern Shore Chapel before it was gussied up with Victorian

curlicues and a belfry. When the Oceana Naval Station was

established in the early 1950s, the old building, incorporating

salvaged portions of the 1755 building, was moved to its present

site near the intersection of Laskin Road and Virginia Beach

Boulevard, where the congregation now worships. Take note of the

straw hat of the man standing outside the doorway of the 1755

structure. That was a perambulating umbrella.

- George Tucker

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu