page_title: Capon Chapel
section_title: Baptist affiliation
hierarchical_section_title: Capon Chapel / History / Baptist affiliation
caption_attribution_description: English: Capon Chapel (c. 1756) and Cemetery Historic Marker on Christian Church Road (County Route 13) near Capon Bridge, West Virginia, United States. English: Capon Chapel (c. 1756) and Cemetery on Christian Church Road (County Route 13) near Capon Bridge, West Virginia, United States.Capon Chapel 3
context_page_description: Capon Chapel, also historically known as Capon Baptist Chapel and Capon Chapel Church, is a mid-19th century United Methodist church located near to the town of Capon Bridge, West Virginia, in the United States. Capon Chapel is one of the oldest existing log churches in Hampshire County, along with Mount Bethel Church and Old Pine Church.
  A Baptist congregation was gathering at the site of the present-day church by at least 1756. Primitive Baptist minister John Monroe is credited for establishing a place of worship at this site; he is interred in the church's cemetery. The land on which Capon Chapel was built originally belonged to William C. Nixon, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates; later, it was transferred to the Pugh family. The first documented mention of a church at the Capon Chapel site was in March 1852, when Joseph Pugh allocated the land to three trustees for the construction of a church and cemetery.
  During the early years of Capon Chapel, no Protestant denomination was the exclusive owner or occupant, and the church was probably utilized as a "union church" for worship by any Christian denomination.
context_section_description: The Baptists established the oldest extant churches in Hampshire County. After the end of the American Revolutionary War, Baptist preachers continued their attempt to gain a foothold in what is now the Eastern Panhandle region. During the Baptists' early growth in Hampshire County, the best known Baptist ministers were John Monroe (1750–1824) and Benjamin Stone (1743–1842). Monroe preached at the North River, Crooked Run, and Patterson's Creek churches during the early 19th century. According to historians Hu Maxwell and Howard Llewellyn Swisher in History of Hampshire County, West Virginia (1897), Monroe was a minister for Primitive Baptists, who were adherent to a strict interpretation of the Calvinist theology of the Ketocton Association. Monroe probably established a Baptist church on the site of the present-day Capon Chapel, where he is buried in the church's cemetery. However, other sources claim that a Baptist congregation began gathering at the Capon Chapel site as early as 1756.
  Increased settlement and the arrival of other religious denominations in the Cacapon River Valley were further facilitated following the completion of the Northwestern Turnpike in the 1830s, which connected Parkersburg with Winchester. A small community began to develop near the turnpike's Cacapon River crossing, 2.01 miles (3.23 km) north of Capon Chapel's present-day location. The community later became the town of Capon Bridge.
  The land on which Capon Chapel was built belonged to William C. Nixon (1789–1869), a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Nixon's mother-in-law, Elizabeth Caudy (1773–1816), was the first person to be buried in the church's cemetery. While various sources estimate that Capon Chapel was built around the 1750s, there is no physical or documentary evidence to support this claim. The first documented mention of a church at the Capon Chapel site was in March 1852, when Joseph Pugh allocated 88 and one-half poles, or approximately 0.55 acres (2,200 m²),  to three trustees: David Pugh, another David Pugh, and Robert Pugh. The Pugh family, which was of Welsh descent, were early settlers in the Cacapon River Valley, and were one of the families that came from Wales through Pennsylvania in the late 17th century. The grant's deed told the trustees to conceive "a Graveyard and for a house for the Public Worship of Almighty God for the use of all orthodox Christians", and specified that the land was only to be used for religious worship and "for no other purpose". The deed further stipulated that inheritors of the land had to be Pugh's descendants.
  During the church's early years, no Protestant denomination was the exclusive owner or occupant of Capon Chapel, which indicates that the church was probably utilized as a "union church" for worship by any Christian denomination. Since no single denomination oversaw the church during this early period, few records of its early activities and construction exist. Later records suggest that Capon Chapel was used as a place of worship by Baptists until the late 19th or early 20th century. While it remains unclear why or how the church became associated with the Baptists, its use by the denomination is possibly associated with the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement during the early-to-mid 19th century that gained momentum throughout the United States. According to the December 1904 issue of The Baptist Home Mission Monthly, the Baptist Little Cacapon Church contributed one dollar to the general fund of Capon Chapel, demonstrating that the Baptist community still continued to operate from or associate with the church in 1904.
caption: The wooden historical marker located near the west side. While it claims that construction occurred in the 1750s, existing documentation supports a construction date of around 1852.
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