Hear the Stories

Back at Christ Church, there will be even more opportunities to learn about history and more. Did you know that each year, more than 20,000 visitors visit the Christ Church, Frederica campus?!

Some come because they read about the church in Eugenia Price’s St. Simons trilogy, and they want to see it or learn more. Many visitors come to visit the cemetery, the final resting place not only of Eugenia herself, but for several individuals that inspired her books, and many other island luminaries. Still others come to “walk where the Wesleys walked.” In any case, the historic church is an island icon and holds many stories.

On Tour Day, docents will share some of these stories by presenting historical narratives from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. in various places in and around the church and the parish hall. Multiple “learning stations” will be available for visitors to learn about the church and its history, so closely entwined with the European settlement of St. Simons Island. You’ll hear about the beginning of Anglican worship here in 1736 when General James Oglethorpe arrived with two newly ordained Church of England priests, brothers Charles and John Wesley. Details about how the church parish was formed in 1808 as a Protestant Episcopal Church on the heels of the Revolutionary War and the first church structure was built in 1820 will be shared. Learn more about Anson G.P. Dodge and his arrival on the island as a 19-year old in 1879, here to observe his family’s lumber mill, and how he became so moved by the little parish that he entered Seminary in New York in order to return to St. Simons Island to minister and build a new church with his own funds, replacing the 1820 structure. Hear the story of Anna Alexander, the first African American Episcopal Deaconess, who was born circa 1865 to parents formerly enslaved on the island.