Augusta Stone Church: Oldest West of the Blue Ridge

The Augusta Stone Church, completed in seventeen forty-nine, is the oldest standing church west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, and the oldest Presbyterian church in continuous use in the Commonwealth. Pastor John Craig supervised its construction from locally quarried limestone, replacing an earlier log meetinghouse that had served the Scotch-Irish settlers of Augusta County since seventeen forty.

The congregation built the stone walls thick for a reason beyond worship. At the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in the seventeen fifties, Craig and his parishioners fortified the building with log palisades and watchtowers, making it a refuge against raids on the frontier. That defensive spirit gave the surrounding community its name: Fort Defiance, a village that still exists today. The church was later enlarged in the nineteen twenties and a new wing added in the nineteen fifties, but it never stopped holding services.