A Brief History of Westhampton Baptist Church

Westhampton Baptist Church

By the year 1911, Richmond had recovered from most of the devastation of the Civil War and was a growing city of 10.7 square miles and over 127,000 inhabitants. The western boundary of the city was Roseneath Road from Monument Avenue to Cary Street, and there was no church of any denomination to the west of the Boulevard.

Beyond the city limits, the small village of Rio Vista had grown up on Grove Avenue around its intersection with Libbie and Maple Avenues, and consisted of a dozen or more houses, a post office and a general store. The nearest churches were Mount Vernon Baptist on Broad Street Road, and Ridge Baptist on Ridge Road. Both churches were more than three miles from Rio Vista, and were accessible to residents of the little village only by travel on foot, horseback, or horse-drawn buggy.

To meet the need for a local church near the village of Rio Vista, Mr. Charlie Thompson, who would become a charter member of the fledgling church, purchased a piece of rural farm land for $1,000 and gave it to the newly constituted Westhampton Baptist Church. The date was Sunday, April 2, 1911, when the Westhampton Baptist Church comprised of twenty-nine men and women as its charter members first came to life as a "daughter" church of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Richmond.

In 1901 the Westhampton Park Railway Company had purchased the right of way for a trolley line which would operate between the city and the popular Westhampton Park, an amusement park that attracted many Richmonders during the Summer months. The trolley line passed through the median strip that now divides the access road on the western edge of the church property from Three Chopt Road.

The University of Richmond (then known as "Richmond College") had been established in 1830 by Virginia Baptists who placed a high value on education. In 1914 the College bought the land that had previously been Westhampton Park and moved to its present location. Since Westhampton was the closest Baptist church to the campus, the church was for many years a university church. While continuing a close relationship with the University community, the ministry of Westhampton Church has become much broader.

Westhampton Baptist Church is now a community of faith ministering not only in the Westhampton community, but also in the City of Richmond, in Virginia, and around the world. This church freely chooses to associate with the sixty-one churches and missions of the Richmond Baptist Association, and the 1,551 churches of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, and is associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Southern Baptist Convention. However, as a local church, we diligently seek to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit above all associations, and we plan our ministry and our mission according to the uniqueness of our people, the doors of mission opportunity that open to us, and the Great Commission of Jesus Christ found in Matthew 28:19-20.