Alexandria Presbyterian Church, built 1851 and refaced in 1906

The Alexandria Presbyterian Church stands on the northeast corner of Hartslog Street and Shelton Avenue, and its doorway carries its own history in an inscription that sets the name First Presbyterian Church between the dates 1850 and 1906. The Historic American Buildings Survey recorded it in 1988 as HABS PA-5413.

The survey dates the building to 1851 and, citing Hartslog Heritage, names William Walker, an Alexandria house carpenter, as its architect. As built it matched the German Reformed Church on Main Street: three bays, a central door, and a hexagonal Greek Revival bell tower over the front gable. Both churches were finished in 1851, and the survey allows that the same architect or the same model may lie behind both. Jordan's 1913 history puts the cost at over $6,000, and Africa's 1883 history says the older White Meeting House was torn down about that time and part of its material went into furnishing the lecture room of the new church.

The congregation was born of a split. Africa records that in 1814 part of the Hart's Log congregation, dissatisfied with the Rev. John Johnston's opinions on the War of 1812, withdrew and ultimately became the basis of the Alexandria Presbyterian Church. In 1819 it joined with Shaver's Creek in calling the Rev. James Thompson, ordained and installed on April 19, 1819; with no meeting house, the people met in a stone shop owned by George Wilson until the frame White Meeting House went up. Thompson served until his death on October 8, 1830. The reunion with Hart's Log was agreed on November 15, 1830 and took effect the following January 1, with 140 names on the rolls; a later count in Africa gives 220 members.

In 1906 the front was rebuilt with financial support from William Thompson, in memory of his father, the pastor. The tower came down and the facade was extended south under a double-height Gothic arch with quatrefoil tracery, crenellated wings and stained glass; the sanctuary's sixteen-over-sixteen sash gave way to pointed arches. The survey found the original block in five-course common bond on a stone foundation, the new front on concrete, and, added later, a small cinder-block shed in the northwest recess.

In 1814 some members withdrew from the Harts Log Church congregation because the pastor, Reverend John Johnston, allegedly expressed some pro-British sentiments; in the wake of the War of 1812 this was not well received, and a large number of the Scotch-Irish congregation formed the Alexandria Presbyterian Church.Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, Alexandria Presbyterian Church, written data pages, HABS PA-5413 data pages, p. 3 (Historical Context) · character 3,920 of the scanned text

Checked 2026-09-05 · Library of Congress survey record, read in full

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