Christiana Presbyterian Church

The Christiana Presbyterian Church was organized in 1732, and a small, 26 x 36 foot frame ediface was built here in 1738.  The following year, prominent evangelist George Whitefield preached to 2,000 people on this hillside.  By the time the church was removed, it had grown to 36 x 56, and could seat 260 people.  Dr. Reese Jones and his wife granted the churchyard site to the Presbyterians by their deed of August 19, 1752.  The first minister was George Tennent.

The original building was sold at auction on July 4, 1857, and the cornerstone was laid for a new church on September 8, 1857.  The new church was 61 by 40 feet, cost approximately $4,938 to build, and designed in a pseudo-gotic style that features buttresses and crenelated battlements at both the roof lines and top of the tower.  The entire structure was stuccoed in the second quarter of the 20th century. Among the prominent village citizens who supported the church during the eighteenth century were John Read and Thomas Montgomery, merchants of White Clay Creek Hundred, Dr. Reese Jones and wife, Samuel Patterson (Brigadier General in the Delaware Militia), and Joel Lewis (U.S. Marshall under President Thomas Jefferson's administration). Source: Christiana Historic District Nomination, National Register of Historic Places, 1974.

A 1907 postcard of the Church and Cemetery