Little England Chapel, built in 1879, stands as the only known African American missionary chapel in Virginia. Two years earlier, George C. Rowe, working as a printer at nearby Hampton Institute, taught Sunday school lessons in his home to local African American residents. Referred to as Ocean Cottage Sunday School, the popularity of Rowe’s school prompted William Armstrong, brother of Hampton Institute’s founder, Samuel, to consider the construction of a new building. New York missionary, Daniel F. Cock, provided the land. Students from Hampton Institute rowed across the Hampton River every week to teach Sunday school, later helping to expand the existing church. The building also offered a place for community members to hold social events. Still active as a church in 1989, Little English Chapel eventually became a museum. 

 Today, thanks to the preservation efforts of Mary Johnson, there are permanent exhibits within the chapel that highlight religious practices among African Americans in Virginia after the Civil War. Featured objects include handwritten Sunday school lessons, period photographs, nineteenth-century religious books, as well as the last remaining oil lamp which provided light for evening services.

 Little England Chapel is on both the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places.

 Several objects at NMAAHC connect to the religious history of African Americans in the South. Nat Turner’s bible and Harriet Tubman’s hymnal are on display in the Slavery and Freedom exhibit. Behold ThySon by David C. Driskell is featured in the Visual Arts gallery, while shards of glass from the 16th Street Baptist Church are featured in the Segregation and Freedom exhibition.

Credits and Sources:

Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. “Little England Chapel.” African American Historic Sites Database. Accessed July 2, 2018. http://www.aahistoricsitesva.org/items/show/247.

Veronica A. Davis, email message to author, July 18, 2018.