Christ Church, Washington Parish
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Christ Church
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Christ Church, Washington Parish
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| Location | 620 G Street, S.E. Washington, D.C. |
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| Coordinates | 38°52′53″N 76°59′52″W / 38.88139°N 76.99778°WCoordinates: 38°52′53″N 76°59′52″W / 38.88139°N 76.99778°W |
| Built | 1807 |
| Architect | Latrobe, Henry; Blagden, George |
| Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 69000291 |
| Added to NRHP | May 25, 1969 |
Christ Church — known also as Christ Church, Washington Parish or Christ Church on Capitol Hill — is an historic Episcopal church located at 620 G Street SE in Washington, D.C., USA. The church is also called Christ Church, Navy Yard, because of its proximity to the Washington Navy Yard and the U.S. Marine Barracks nearby (such that the neighborhood is sometimes called "Barracks Row").
Built in 1807 in Gothic Revival style, the church began as one of two parish churches of Washington Parish, which the Maryland General Assembly created in 1794. The current building, built after the American Civil War, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.
Although St. Paul's Church, Rock Creek Parish was founded in 1712 and built a church in 1775 (and remains in the District of Columbia), after the United States Congress decided to establish the new nation's capitol on the Potomac River in 1790 (effective in 1800), accepting land granted for that purpose by the state of Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia to form the District of Columbia, that church was far from the two population centers developing on the riverfront. In 1789, Maryland's General Assembly had granted a charter to the town of Georgetown at the falls of the Potomac River near its confluence with Rock Creek, although that port development had begun in 1759. In 1792, Thomas John Claggett was consecrated as the bishop of the Diocese of Maryland in the newly re-established Episcopal Church. In the following year, he drew the diocesan convention's attention to the distance between the Rock Creek parish and the population centers developing as the national capital was being constructed, and they appointed a 12-member vestry for establishing a parish in Washington. In December, 1794, the Maryland General Assembly formally established Washington Episcopal parish nearer the developing riverfront. Two priests were appointed, Rev. George Ralph (a teacher) for the eastern portion and Rev. Edward Gantt (M.D.) for the western portion, although no record remains of either holding services. Records do show Rev. Walter Dulaney Addison traveling from his home in Oxon Hill, Maryland to conduct services, at first at the Presbyterian Church on M Street with the permission of Rev. Stephen Balch. Soon, a vestry was established, and decided to build two churches, one at either end of the new parish, reflecting the population center at Georgetown as well as near the buildings being constructed for the capital, on the parish's eastern part. They started raising subscriptions and held lotteries to raise funds to construct the buildings, but fundraising proved slow for each of the proposed churches, and construction stopped on the Georgetown church in 1797 with its walls half up.
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