According to Henry Howe in his 1852 Historical Collection of Virginia, Tuscarora Presbyterian Church is “the place where the Gospel was first publicly preached and divine Worship held west of the Blue Ridge Mountains”.  In 1737 all of what is now Berkeley County was part of Orange County, Virginia.  On September 22 of that year, Mr. William Williams, a Presbyterian lay speaker, appeared before the county court at Orange Court House in Virginia and took the oath of allegiance and abjuration required of dissenter ministers and declared his intention to hold meetings at two points in the northern Shenandoah Valley close to the Potomac River.  One of these points turned out to be this very spot, then to be known as Tuscarora Meetinghouse. It was not recognized as a church because under English Law it was not connected to the Church of England.

The settlers in this area were mainly independent Scottish and Irish Presbyterians, who built a log meeting house, two in fact which pre-date our present stone structure.  In 1737 in all of what is now Berkeley County, there were only a few hundred settlers.  There were still a few Indians in the area, enough in fact that the first settlers to worship at Tuscarora felt it necessary to bring their weapons to church.  The racks hanging on the back walls of the sanctuary, made to celebrate one of the church’s centennials in the 1970’s by David “Dick” Catrow, are reproductions of the original racks used to store weapons during worship in the first log structures.  Those same racks hang empty today because we know that we need not fear other people but welcome them.  

It was not easy to travel to Tuscarora in the early 1700s for Sunday service. One surviving record states, “We left Gerrardstown [a ten-mile trek] early on Sunday morning, walked to within sight of Tuscarora Church, then stopped to put on our stockings and shoes before continuing on.”

Tuscarora officially came into existence in 1740 as a member of the Donegal Presbytery, and Mr. Williams preached to the people of Tuscarora for twenty-three years before his death in 1760.  After Mr. Williams and before there was a permanent minister, three supply ministers served this congregation: Robert Cooper, John Craighead and John Hoge.  But in August 23, 1770, Hugh Vance was ordained and installed as the first “called” pastor of the united congregation of Tuscarora and Back Creek (now known as Tomahawk) for the sum of 112 pounds, five shillings, Pennsylvania currency.  The elders who served during Rev. Vance’s pastorate were William Campbell, Joseph McKay, Robert Mercer, John Campbell, Matthew Rippey, Samuel Park, James Riddle and John Hart.  On December 31, 1792, Rev. Vance died, and his remains are buried in the historic portion of Tuscarora Cemetery.

In 1776 something happened that would change American history.  It was a petition signed by ninety-eight men from Tuscarora and fifty from Back Creek.  It was presented to the Speaker and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Virginia in Williamsburg. In essence the petition said that the Presbyterians objected to tax money being used to support a state church in this new United States of America.  They wanted the church to be free from government control and regulation.  None other than Thomas Jefferson used that petition and others like it to formulate the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which was later used as a basis for the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, that guarantees us, as American citizens, freedom of religion.  The original petition is presently located in the Virginia State Archives in Richmond.  A copy of that petition hangs over the glass cabinet in the narthex.

Tuscarora Church continued to prosper. The present stone sanctuary of Tuscarora was built in 1803.  As originally constructed, there were three entrances: one on the north side, one on the east side, and one on the south side.  The pulpit itself was located along the west wall.  Sometime during the 1800s the configuration of the sanctuary was changed; the south entrance was walled up, and the pulpit was relocated on the south wall.  Two windows were added on the west wall.

Up until 1804, Tuscarora Church was affiliated with the Presbyteries of Donegal and Carlisle in Pennsylvania.  In October of 1804, Tuscarora was enrolled in the Winchester Presbytery and remained affiliated with that Presbytery until 1974 when Winchester and Lexington Presbyteries merged to form Shenandoah Presbytery, of which we are a part today.

At the beginning of the 1800s, new names began to appear in the congregation, names like Snodgrass, Miller, Walker, and Cushwa.  These were new people moving into Berkeley County, searching for a place to worship.  In the early 1800s other Presbyterian congregations had been formed by the core group at Tuscarora such as Middletown (now Gerrardstown), Back Creek (now Tomahawk), and Falling Waters.  The membership of Tuscarora, which numbered in excess of 150 in 1776, was down to just 31 in 1809. But there still existed the zeal and willingness to follow the precepts of the Great Commission, and by 1819 membership had risen to 78.  In 1825 Presbyterians established the First Presbyterian Church in Martinsburg, and Tuscarora was left with a membership of just 25. But once again the congregation of Tuscarora rose to 77 after a great revival in 1836.

Then in 1861 a conflict occurred which would change this country forever, The Civil War. More than a few sons of Tuscarora Church rode away to what they thought would be a great adventure, never to return home.  After the war, some of these men did return to Tuscarora and later became elders in the church.  One, David Miller Thatcher, whose father retrieved his son’s body from a battlefield in Fauquier County, Virginia, near Warrenton, is buried in the church cemetery, not twenty feet from the front door of the sanctuary.

The stone structure itself was spared the ravages of war by occupying armies, but families were not.  This area was decimated so much that in 1866, one year after the war, Tuscarora reported to the Winchester Presbytery membership of only 25.  Once again, the congregation had steadfast faith in the Lord, and by 1899 the membership of Tuscarora was up to 49.

In 1890, another change occurred at Tuscarora.  The first deacons were elected to bring procedure in line with the Presbyterian form of government.  More new names begin to appear in the records such as Smith, Catrow, and in the 1920s, Noll.  Also, in the late 1800s, Sunday School began on a regular basis with James H. Smith elected as the first superintendent.  Another change took place in 1901 with the first appearance of organized women’s work.  In the session minutes of April 8, 1901, this group makes its appearance as the Ladies’ Missionary Society, the forerunner of today’s Presbyterian Women.

The Rev. John L. Rogers, a veteran of World War I and a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, was the installed pastor at Tuscarora for 38 years, from 1919 until his retirement in 1957, and is buried in the Tuscarora Cemetery.     

In the early 1920s, Tuscarora installed electric lights.  The original ceiling fixtures remain in the sanctuary today.  In 1940 Tuscarora celebrated its 200th anniversary.  At that time the official membership was forty-five.

In the early 1960s, women were elected to both the Session and the Board of Deacons, some of the first in the Winchester Presbytery to serve as such.  Elsie Brown was elected deacon in 1965 and elder in 1968.  Betty Smith was elected second woman deacon in 1967.  These were among the very first women to serve in the Winchester Presbytery and in the Presbyterian Church in the United States, better known as the Southern Presbyterian Church.  Also, by the end of the decade, membership had passed the 100 mark for the first time since the 1700s.  In 1969, during the pastorate of the Rev. David Coffey, a new educational building was constructed to house a growing church school and provide much needed office space.  A balcony was also added to the sanctuary, as well as an enlarged narthex and air conditioning.

In 1983, the (northern) United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America reunited with the (southern) Presbyterian Church in the United States to form the Presbyterian Church (USA), of which Tuscarora is today a member.  Harold Cushwa, a member of Tuscarora, was a delegate to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States which met in Columbus, Georgia.  Mr. Cushwa was always proud of his vote affirming reunification. 

In 1990, Tuscarora celebrated its 250th anniversary.  Tuscarora gained members: new names, new faces, new ideas, never wavering from the goal of sharing the Christian faith with others. Berkeley County itself experienced another growth surge. New people moved into this county and this community. Some of our members would travel five, ten, even fifteen miles, to worship here on this spot with this congregation.

In 2013, Tuscarora called the Rev. Rachel Crumley as its 24th installed pastor, and the first female pastor, in nearly 275 years of ministry in this place. The work, leadership and ministry of church committees have been quite essential and ongoing. We currently have nine committees: Building and Grounds, Cemetery, Christian Education, Fellowship, Finance & Resources, Member Care, Outreach & Evangelism, Personnel, a Stewardship Team and Resources, and Worship. Through the faithful work of busy committee members and the wider congregation, Tuscarora continues to carry out the work and worship of the church. Other active groups such as Presbyterian Women, with its prayer shawl ministry, Knit One-Pray Too, the Tuscarora Men’s Group, and its Helping Hands ministry, and the Senior Choir have helped to keep our ministries flourishing.

Beginning in March 2020, we experienced and lived through something new in our church history, a world-wide pandemic.  Possibly for the first time, our doors were closed, but we were able to continue online, on both Facebook and YouTube, never missing a Sunday service, with many thanks and much praise to our Tech Team.  Commencing with the worship service on March 7, 2022, based on monitoring the Covid statistics, the Session authorized worship in-person in the sanctuary, without masks and with full choir performance.

This church has survived and thrived because it has been willing to change, willing to welcome new members,  willing to share leadership roles, to follow Christ’s call to love our neighbors and Christ’s commission to go out into the world, and willing to take a chance on the future, at the same time keeping our roots deep in the rich history of the past.