Markers of History

One other way of deal­ing with the back­log (and the sense I have of some series of posts get­ting repet­i­tive) is to try to com­bine some posts where mul­ti­ple mark­ers are in the same place or on the same sub­ject. I don’t have hard and fast rules about when to com­bine, but this is one of them, where there is a state his­tor­i­cal marker which is for a build­ing in the same loca­tion which is also on the National Register of Historic Places.

State Historical Marker
Virginia Q-8-V
St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church

National Register of Historic Places
St. Paul’s Catholic Church

Location: 518 High St, Portsmouth, VA 23704

Visited: June 23, 2009, 2:55pm

Transcription of state marker: St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church was first built by French and Irish immi­grants between 1811 and 1815 and was the first Catholic con­gre­ga­tion estab­lished in Portsmouth. Increasing mem­ber­ship neces­si­tated the build­ing of new struc­tures in 1831 and 1851. Fire destroyed the third build­ing in 1859; that same year the con­gre­ga­tion began con­struct­ing a fourth struc­ture, com­pleted in 1868. It burned in 1897. The cur­rent Gothic Revival church here, noted for its stained glass win­dows, was designed by John Kevan Peebles and ded­i­cated in 1905. It was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Department of Historic Resources, 2003

Transcription of another plaque beside the state marker:

A bur­ial ground for early paris­hon­ers and clergy of St. Paul’s Catholic Church was located on this site dur­ing the nine­teenth cen­tury. Among those buried here were:

Patrick Robertson, who bequeathed the funds to pur­chase this prop­erty in 1810 and con­struct the first St. Paul’s; Rosalie and Bartholomew Accinelli, found­ing mem­bers of this con­gre­ga­tion; Antonio Sylvestre Bilisoli, a found­ing mem­ber of this con­gre­ga­tion who fought dur­ing the American Revolution; Rev. Francis Devlin, pas­tor from 1844 to 1855, who died min­is­ter­ing to the cit­i­zens of Portsmouth dur­ing the Yellow Fever epi­demic of 1855; and Rev. Joseph Plunkett, pas­tor from 1855 to 1870 and dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the fourth St. Paul’s.

My impres­sions: This is cer­tainly a strik­ing look­ing build­ing (and given their past his­tory, they seem lucky that it has stood for more than a cen­tury). I liked the tiny plaque in the gar­den beside the state marker, because it helped move my thoughts from the grand build­ing to the fact that there were peo­ple con­nected to this site. It was even bet­ter because it explained why each per­son named was impor­tant to the his­tory of St. Paul’s. And, since I’ve been going through mark­ers from Portsmouth, nice to see some con­nec­tions, includ­ing the men­tion of the Yellow Fever epi­demic, which I think I first read about in a marker in Fort Nelson Park (that appeared on this blog over the hol­i­day weekend).

Markeroni sta­tus: I’ve logged both the state marker and the loca­tion from the National Register of Historic Places, but have not sub­mit­ted the other plaque tran­scribed here.

Markers of History is going to take a hol­i­day week­end off from post­ing, but I didn’t want to leave you high and dry, so we’ll close today with a bumper load of his­tor­i­cal markers.

Path of History
Fort Nelson Park

Location: Fort Nelson Park, cor­ner of Crawford Pkwy & Effingham St, Portsmouth, VA 23704.

Visited: June 23, 2009, 1:55pm

On my last trip to Portsmouth, I came across Fort Nelson Park which con­tained roughly a dozen Path of History mark­ers about Portsmouth Naval Hospital. I’m cross­ing my fin­gers, hop­ing that I man­aged to get all of them. (I’ll have to double-check next time I’m in Portsmouth.)

Given the large num­ber of images and mark­ers included in this post, I will spare the front page of this site and ask you to click the link to see the mark­ers and their texts, but I’ll break with my tra­di­tional order and open this post with:

My impres­sions: I was impressed with the pleas­ant set­ting for these mark­ers. That said, I was dis­ap­pointed (on a hot June day) not to find more shade. Thinking back, I’m won­der­ing what may have stood on that site before the park, which only opened three years ago.

Related to this: See Monday’s post for a state his­tor­i­cal marker about Fort Nelson.

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