New War of 1812 Marker to be Dedicated at Va. Church

Yeocomico Church

At the old colonial Yeocomico Church (1706) in Westmoreland Co., Va., there’s a new historical marker going up related to the War of 1812. The incident was called “the Yeocomico Poisoning” and the marker will be erected on the church grounds near the roadway. Dedication and unveiling on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at Yeocomico Church. A short program will be held in the church at 9:00 a.m. with the unveiling of the marker at 9:15 a.m.

Yeocomico Church is located on Rt. 606 between Kinsale and Tucker Hill. Yeocomico Church is the oldest church in Westmoreland County. Originally built in 1655 of oak timbers sheathed with clapboards, the church was rebuilt in 1706 with bricks fired in a nearby kiln. 

From the church’s website:   The church, built in 1706, or almost precisely a hundred years after the first settlement at Jamestown, takes its name from Yeocomico River, flowing into the Potomac and dividing Westmoreland from Northumberland. It stands near the Potomac shaded by trees and protected by a brick wall, the restoration of an old one, which even in 1857, according to Bishop Meade’s testimony, was “mouldering away.” The church also has been considerably restored, but it remains notable among Virginia Colonial churches for the curious roof lines created by a gentler slope and then a steeper slope in the gable, and for the porch on the T-side of the cross which has the same broken roof lines. The placing of the windows is likewise unusual, and though the general pattern of the brickwork is the regulation Flemish bond and glazed header combination, there is a quaint variation of that pattern in the gable of the porch and, over the door of the porch, an unusual combination of three arches, the top one based on the two lower—suggesting the top of a mullioned window.

Date in church wall, 1706