Qualla: St. James Church (Accomac, Virginia)

St. James Church (Accomac, Virginia): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jb91archivist, CC BY-SA 3.0. Step through the doors and the church gets deeper than it should. The chancel arch recedes into a coffered apse, fluted pilasters support an entablature, the ceiling vaults into ornamented panels framing a central medallion - and none of it is there. Every column, coffer, and shadow was painted onto flat plaster by a traveling artist named Jean G. Potts in the 1840s, a master of the trompe-l'oeil style whose entire trade was fooling the eye. Stand in the right spot and the back wall opens like a stage set. Walk closer and it flattens, the illusion collapses, and St. James Church becomes what it actually is: a brick box in a small Virginia county seat, holding a painting that pretends to be a building.

Image: Jb91archivist | CC BY-SA 3.0

St. James Church (Accomac, Virginia): From Chapel to County Seat

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ammodramus, CC0. Accomack Parish was carved off from Hungars Parish in 1663, and the first St. James was built in 1767 near present-day Onley to serve congregants in the southeastern reaches of the county. About twenty years later, Drummondtown was chartered as the new county seat - a town with t...

Image: Ammodramus | CC0

St. James Church (Accomac, Virginia): The Painter Who Fooled the Eye

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jb91archivist, CC BY-SA 3.0. The vestry hired Jean G. Potts, an itinerant artist who specialized in trompe-l'oeil - literally "fool the eye" - and gave him the entire interior. He covered all four walls beginning at the dado, painted simulated recessed panels rising to a painted cornice, and then ran a row o...

Image: Jb91archivist | CC BY-SA 3.0

St. James Church (Accomac, Virginia): Greek Outside, Gothic on Top

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ammodramus, CC0. The exterior is disciplined Greek Revival. Brick walls laid in three-to-one common bond, a tetrastyle Doric portico with a brick floor in herringbone, two doorways topped by a lunette window, a dentil cornice running across the front and down the sides. Inside, slip pews with doo...

Image: Ammodramus | CC0

St. James Church (Accomac, Virginia): A Governor, a War, and a Building Spared

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jb91archivist, CC BY-SA 3.0. This was the home parish of Henry A. Wise - lawyer, Virginia's 33rd governor, the man who refused to commute John Brown's death sentence in 1859 and then made fiery speeches for secession. His birthplace is still visible from the church's back lawn. When the Civil War came, much ...

Image: Jb91archivist | CC BY-SA 3.0

St. James Church (Accomac, Virginia): Still Active, Still Painted

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jb91archivist, CC BY-SA 3.0. St. James remains an active congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, part of St. George's Parish in Pungoteague. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 for its Greek Revival design and Potts's frescoes, and it is a contributing buildi...

Image: Jb91archivist | CC BY-SA 3.0