Not the 1st Anglican Church in Annapolis Royal

While St. Luke’s Anglican Church has been standing opposite the Garrison Graveyard in Parks Canada’s National Historic Site since it’s 1822 completion, it was preceded by a more modest building.

“The new church, begun about 1775, was built on that part of the French glebe which had been conveyed by De Brouillan and which as I have said was a little more elevated than the other part. The church was sixty feet by forty in size, and was called St Luke’s. It stood about halfway between Church Street and Drury Street, or just where the railway tracks lead from the old station to the railway pier, with its west end on St George Street….."

Source: Savary: “French and English Churches at Annapolis Royal”

The 1st Anglican Church in Annapolis Royal. Artist unknown.

Reverend Jacob Bailey, Loyalist refugee from Maine and recently appointed Anglican minister for the parish of Annapolis, Nova Scotia, after his arrival in August, 1782 wrote: ""We have a church at Annapolis sixty feet long and forty broad, with a steeple and a bell, but as the outside only is finished, we are unable to have any service in it during the extremely cold weather and at present no way of heating it.”

By 1810, the first Church had fallen into significant disrepair. The Wardens and Vestry determined to raise funds for a new Church, and to obtain a grant of land upon which to build it. King George III obliged them in 1814. A Royal grant of land providing for a Garrison Church for the military community serving at Fort Anne was received.

Historic St. Luke's, the Old Garrison Church. St. Luke’s continues as a place of worship, as it has from the day it was finished in 1822. It is the second Anglican Church to be built in Annapolis Royal, replacing the Rev. Bailey’s first Church.

The Reverend Jacob Bailey’s gravestone is in the Garrison Graveyard just across St. George Street, and is one of 234 remaining standing stones in the cemetery which served Annapolis until 1940.
Explore the remaining stones here.

Our extensive storymap of the cemeteries and churches of Annapolis County is here.