A grand celebration will take place Sunday, July 26th, at 10 a.m. when almost a year of commemoration of 150 years of serving the community concludes with a special service at Delaplane's Piedmont Parish of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church.

"Consecration Sunday" will be officiated by The Rev. Stephen Becker and a festive picnic will follow the service. The community is invited and is welcome to attend.

The celebration officially began on September 13th 2008 with an Ice Cream Social and a viewing of Tom Davenport's documentary "Remembering Emmanuel." The following day a historic marker was unveiled and dedicated in the churchyard. A picnic followed featuring fried chicken, homemade desserts and lots of lemonade and iced tea.

Throughout the year the church has celebrated by hosting many events featuring guest speakers including Ken Garrett who presented "The Journey Through Hallowed Ground" and Rich Gillespie, Director of Education for The Mosby Heritage Area Association who gave a fascinating presentation of what it was like for Emmanuel Church during the period of the Civil War.

The children of the parish have learned about its history through workshops and projects led by Mert Cook while the 150th Committee has been busy raising funds for maintenance projects such as replacing the organ, painting the church house and parish hall and many other much-needed improvements. The funds have been raised with brick-by-brick donations. Parishioners purchase engraved bricks to honor friends and loved ones and the engraved bricks then grace the walkway from the bell tower to the parish hall building.

According to "A History of Emmanuel Episcopal Church," Piedmont Parish was formed from Leeds in 1850, the petitioners asking to be received into the diocese "under the name of Trinity Church, Piedmont Parish, Fauquier County."

Tradition places the line dividing Piedmont and Leeds as passing between the two Cobbler Mountains.

Prior to the establishment of Piedmont Parish and the building of Trinity in Salem, Episcopalians in the vicinity of Oak Hill worshiped first at a chapel of ease, "the log church," one of five churches in Leeds Parish, and later at the Cool Spring Meeting House. The latter building was also known as the "hornet Church" because of the hornets' nests with which it was endowed, whose occupants beset clergy and congregation alike, but especially clergy.

Some time before 1858, when it was apparent that both the log church and the Cool Spring Meeting House were in such disrepair that they would have to be abandoned, the Methodists and the Episcopalians, who up to this time had shared the same house of worship, decided to build separate churches. Catherine Shacklett, a member of a prominent Methodist family who lived nearby (at Yew Hill), donated land for a Methodist Church. John Thomas Smith and Margaret L. Smith gave the land to Piedmont Parish on which Emmanuel now stands. This land was a part of Mrs. Smith's inheritance from her father, Thomas Marshall (son of John Marshall). The building was begun in September 1858. Owing to the illness of Bishop Meadde, the consecration was postponed until July 23, 1859.

For further info about the July 26th celebration, please contact the church office @ 540-364-2772.