Category Archive 'Old Chapel'

04 Apr 2010

Dawn Easter Service

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There won’t be a lot of blogging getting done today. We’ve been unpacking for a couple of days, and then arose at 4:30 A.M. this morning to drive up to the Dawn Easter Service at the Old Chapel (also here). Karen was part of the ensemble of singers performing Sacred Harp.

The Old Chapel is an unheated, unelectrified stone structure containing its original furnishings, and is the oldest Episcopalian church built west of the Blue Ridge. The slave gallery is, of course, a feature of ecclesiastical architecture unique to the South. Services began well before dawn and each person in attendance held a small wax taper with a circle of paper to guard the hand from hot wax drippings in the otherwise completely unilluminated old building.

After church, we went back to our old house on top of the Blue Ridge to pick up and transport another load, drove back to the farm, unloaded, changed clothing, and collapsed.

Two Sacred Harp shape note hymns can be heard performed on this 4:32 video

The singers at the Old Chapel this morning performed Green Fields, the second hymn on the video.

Curiously enough, we owe our access to Virginia hunting society to Sacred Harp signing. Karen met the Field Secretary of the Blue Ridge Hunt at a local Sacred Harp rehearsal and one thing led to another.


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