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Chapel of the Centurion

1858 establishments in Virginia19th-century churches in the United StatesCarpenter Gothic church buildings in VirginiaChurches completed in 1858Churches in Hampton, Virginia
Historic American Buildings Survey in VirginiaHistoric district contributing properties in VirginiaMilitary chapels of the United StatesMilitary facilities on the National Register of Historic Places in VirginiaNRHP infobox with nocatNational Register of Historic Places in Hampton, VirginiaProperties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in VirginiaRichard Upjohn church buildings
Fort Monroe, Chapel of the Centurion, Off Ruckman Road, Hampton, Hampton, VA
Fort Monroe, Chapel of the Centurion, Off Ruckman Road, Hampton, Hampton, VA

The Chapel of the Centurion is the oldest continually used wooden military structure for religious services in the United States. It is located inside Fort Monroe, a former military installation located in Hampton, Virginia. The Chapel is named for Cornelius the Centurion, who is believed to be the first Gentile to convert to Christianity.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Chapel of the Centurion (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Chapel of the Centurion
North Gate Road, Hampton

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 37.002777777778 ° E -76.3075 °
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Address

Fort Monroe

North Gate Road
23651 Hampton
Virginia, United States
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Fort Monroe, Chapel of the Centurion, Off Ruckman Road, Hampton, Hampton, VA
Fort Monroe, Chapel of the Centurion, Off Ruckman Road, Hampton, Hampton, VA
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Fort Monroe
Fort Monroe

Fort Monroe is a former military installation in Hampton, Virginia, at Old Point Comfort, the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula, United States. It is currently managed by partnership between the Fort Monroe Authority for the Commonwealth of Virginia, the National Park Service, and the city of Hampton as the Fort Monroe National Monument. Along with Fort Wool, Fort Monroe originally guarded the navigation channel between the Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads—the natural roadstead at the confluence of the Elizabeth, the Nansemond and the James rivers. Until disarmament in 1946, the areas protected by the fort were the entire Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River regions, including the water approaches to the cities of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, along with important shipyards and naval bases in the Hampton Roads area. Surrounded by a moat, the six-sided bastion fort is the largest fort by area ever built in the United States.During the initial exploration by a mission headed by Captain Christopher Newport in the early 1600s, the earliest days of the Colony of Virginia, the site was identified as a strategic defensive location. Beginning by 1609, defensive fortifications were built at Old Point Comfort during Virginia's first two centuries. The first was a wooden stockade named Fort Algernourne, followed by other small forts. However, the much more substantial facility of stone that became known as Fort Monroe (and adjacent Fort Wool on an artificial island across the channel) were completed in 1834, as part of the third system of U.S. fortifications. The principal fort was named in honor of U.S. President James Monroe.Although Virginia became part of the Confederate States of America, Fort Monroe remained in Union hands throughout the American Civil War (1861–1865). Union General George B. McClellan landed the Army of the Potomac at the fort during Peninsula campaign of 1862 of that conflict. The fort was notable as a historic and symbolic site of early freedom for former slaves under the provisions of contraband policies. For two years following the war, the former Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, was imprisoned at the fort. His first months of confinement were spent in a cell of the casemated fort walls that is now part of its Casemate Museum. Around the turn of the 20th century, numerous gun batteries were added in and near Fort Monroe under the Endicott program; it became the largest fort and headquarters of the Harbor Defenses of Chesapeake Bay. In the 19th and 20th centuries it housed artillery schools, including the Coast Artillery School (1907–1946). The Continental Army Command (CONARC) (1955–1973) headquarters was at Fort Monroe, succeeded by the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) following a division of CONARC into TRADOC and United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) in 1973. CONARC was responsible for all active Army units in the continental United States. TRADOC was headquartered at the fort from 1973 until it was moved to Fort Eustis in 2011.Fort Monroe was deactivated September 15, 2011, and many of its functions were transferred to nearby Fort Eustis. Several re-use plans for Fort Monroe are under development in the Hampton community. On November 1, 2011, President Barack Obama signed a proclamation to designate portions of Fort Monroe as a national monument. This was the first time that President Obama exercised his authority under the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law to protect sites deemed to have natural, historical or scientific significance.

Fort Wool
Fort Wool

Fort Wool is a decommissioned island fortification located in the mouth of Hampton Roads, adjacent to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT). Officially known as Rip Raps Island, the fort has an elevation of 7 feet and sits near Old Point Comfort, Old Point Comfort Light, Willoughby Beach and Willoughby Spit, approximately one mile south of Fort Monroe. Originally named Castle Calhoun or Fort Calhoun after Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, the fort was renamed after Maj. Gen. John Ellis Wool on 18 March 1862 during the American Civil War. It is noted on current nautical maps as "Rip Raps" and was sometimes referred to by that name during the Civil War.Fort Wool was one of more than 40 forts developed after the War of 1812, when British forces sailed the Chesapeake Bay to burn the Capital. This program was later known as the third system of U.S. fortifications. Designed by Brigadier General of Engineers Simon Bernard, an expatriate Frenchman who had served as a general of engineers under Napoleon, Fort Wool was constructed on a shoal of ballast stones dumped as sailing ships entered Hampton's harbor and was originally intended to have three tiers of casemates and a barbette tier with 216 muzzle-loading cannon, although it never reached this size. Only two-thirds of the fort's bottom two tiers were completed. Fort Wool was built to maintain a crossfire with Fort Monroe, located directly across the channel, thereby protecting the entrance to the harbor.In 1902, as a result of the Endicott Board's findings, all of the original fort, except for eight casemates at the west end, was demolished and new fortifications were constructed. The new armament, mounted in three batteries of two 6-inch (152 mm) guns each, plus two batteries totaling six 3-inch (76 mm) guns, remained in place for decades, with modifications made from time to time. Only the six original three-inch guns remained in 1942, when two were sent to nearby Fort John Custis on Fisherman Island. A modern battery of two new long-range six-inch guns was constructed over one of the old Endicott period batteries during World War II but was never armed. The fort was decommissioned by the military in 1953.