{"nrhp_refnum":"70000832","name":"Grace Church","other_names":["York-Hampton Parish Church"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Rte. 1003 and Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Yorktown","county":"York County","state":"VA","lat":37.236103376000074,"lon":-76.50758721599993,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1970-09-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Grace Church, historically York-Hampton Parish Church, is a marl-walled parish church in Yorktown, York County, Virginia, built about 1697 and rebuilt in 1848 after a fire.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as one of the few, if not the only, surviving colonial structures built of marl, and as the only church to serve York-Hampton Parish. It also holds the second oldest set of communion silver in Virginia and has ties to the prominent Nelson family, who are buried in its churchyard.","narrative":"Overlooking the York River in Yorktown, Grace Church is a parish church whose walls were cut from marl, a soft stone that hardens on exposure to air. Built about 1697 as York-Hampton Parish Church, it is described as one of the few, if not the only, surviving colonial structures of this material, though stucco added in the nineteenth century hides most of the marl. The church served as a magazine during the Revolution, burned accidentally in 1814, and was rebuilt in 1848 with a Greek Revival profile and without its original north wing. Federal troops later used the roof as a signal tower and the interior as a hospital. Its bell, inscribed 1725, was recovered in Philadelphia and recast in 1889. The church also owns communion silver from 1649-50, and the churchyard holds the graves of three members of the Nelson family, including a signer of the Declaration of Independence.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Greek Revival profile from the 1848 restoration; colonial marl walls beneath nineteenth-century stucco","criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition is marked good and the building is in religious use; it is altered but on its original site.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:57.076477-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/51/6842/41684251/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/70000832.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000832/36b0a126ea-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000832/36b0a126ea-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grace_Episcopal_Church,_Yorktown,_Virginia_(2522848542).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grace_Episcopal_Church,_Yorktown,_Virginia_(2522848542).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41684251","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Church_(Yorktown,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5591047"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/york-county/grace-church-70000832/"}