Grace Church Parish history
By Jim Coursey
Around 1830, when Hopkinsville was virtually a frontier outpost and the Bishop's See was Lexington, the Episcopal Church in Hopkinsville came into being. In the early summer of 1831 when Bishop Meade visited Hopkinsville, it was the farthest west that any Episcopal bishop had ever made an official visit. Bishop Benjamin B. Smith was an organizer of the church and George P. Giddinge its first rector. The population of Hopkinsville at the time was approximately 1,500.
Samuel Hopkins, for whom the city was named and William Christian, for whom the county was named were both Episcopalians. Where the Church held its services from 1831 until around 1850 is somewhat of an enigma. Other church buildings and school buildings that were available have been put forward as the most probable sites. Around 1850 the Church built its first building in the block north of the present Grace Church. The first Parish House building still exists at the northwest corner of 5th Street and Liberty.
A photo in the Harvey O. White Story of Grace Church is captioned “first building erected in 1846.” OOPS! If this indeed is the first building, it was much altered from the original - since the style of the building depicted is twenty to thirty years later in time. As for the exact location of the church, it faced Virginia Street but was set far back from the street on a raised piece of ground where one can now see a concrete slab. On the tenth of October 1875 Jefferson Davis worshiped there.
In 1883 funds were raised for construction of the present Grace Church building. It was built in the then popular English Gothic Revival style, and is a fine example of that period - listed on the National Register of Historic Places. John C. Latham Jr., Hopkinsville's greatest philanthropist to date, furnished a considerable portion of the money for the project. The stained glass window over the altar is in memory of his mother, Virginia Glass Latham, and another window celebrates his own life. Latham also bought the Estey organ for Grace Church and left us $50,000 in his will, a very considerable sum in 1909.
Nat Gaither, father of Dr. Gant Gaither, started a Sunday School for Black children in the 1880's and by 1896 the need was apparent for a church building, which was constructed in the Neo Federal style, and is still in use today as our Aaron McNeill center. In 1906 the Gaither Parish House was added to the main building in a style sympathetic to the original structure. Our multi purpose All Saints Hall was completed in 1985. Our only demolition project was the WW I Abbitt Hall, which was a building of no particular architectural merit. In addition to the already cleaned up spaces around Grace Church, our current Capital Campaign will secure our future by addressing much needed repair and maintenance issues while providing funds for the erection of some additional needed spaces, which will be sensitive to the architectural integrity of our prevailing structures.