Norfolk's only colonial building to survive the 1776 British bombardment — a 1776 cannonball is still in its south wall, and the long-serving rector reportedly still walks the churchyard.
201 St. Paul's Blvd, Norfolk, VA 23510
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to visit the churchyard and cannonball wall. Worship services and tours of the interior offered through the parish.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Brick churchyard with uneven historic grave markers; level entry to the nave
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1739 · Only Colonial Building Surviving 1776 Norfolk Bombardment · Revolutionary War · Lord Dunmore's Raid · Active Episcopal Parish
The original Norfolk Borough Church, built of brick in 1699, was succeeded by the present St. Paul's nave, completed in 1739 in the Georgian style. The church stands as the only colonial-era building in Norfolk to have survived the British bombardment of January 1, 1776, during which Royal Governor Lord Dunmore's fleet shelled the town from the harbor in retaliation for Patriot resistance. Patriots set fires to remaining Loyalist properties, and the rest of colonial Norfolk burned over the following days.
A cannonball, said by tradition to have been fired by HMS Liverpool during the bombardment, struck the church's south wall. It was later recovered from the churchyard during work in the 1840s and re-embedded into the wall where the original strike occurred. The cannonball remains visible there today and is the church's most-photographed feature, drawing visitors as both a Revolutionary War relic and an Atlas Obscura listing.
The Rev. Nicholas Albertson Okeson (1819 or 1826–1882) became rector of St. Paul's in April 1856 and served the parish for more than twenty-six years. He studied theology at Union College in Schenectady, New York under Dr. Eliphalet Nott, and previously held charges in Georgia and in Charles City County, Virginia. During the Federal occupation of Norfolk in the Civil War, Okeson briefly transferred to Christ Church but ultimately resumed his pulpit at St. Paul's. He died of malaria on September 16, 1882, and was buried in the churchyard he had served.
The parish continues as an active Episcopal congregation, and the churchyard's colonial markers, Revolutionary-era cannonball, and Okeson's grave together make the site one of Norfolk's most-visited historical landmarks.
Sources
Per Colonial Ghosts, the Mid-Atlantic Tourism PR Alliance, and VisitNorfolk's blog, the central paranormal story at St. Paul's is the appearance of the Rev. Nicholas Albertson Okeson in the churchyard where he was laid to rest after his 1882 death. Okeson's tenure as rector — twenty-six years interrupted only by Federal occupation during the Civil War — makes him the longest-serving documented minister of the parish, and ghost-tour narratives frame the apparition as 'still walking his rounds.'
A secondary report describes a shadowy figure near the altar inside the church, observed by parishioners and visitors during quieter hours. This figure is not associated with a specific named person and is documented only through ghost-tour and tourism sources rather than through parish records.
The ghostly material here is deliberately gentle and pastoral — there are no malevolent claims, no graphic incidents, and the underlying figures (a long-serving rector who died of disease, an unnamed shadow) are framed by local guides as benign caretakers of a sacred space. Sensitivity is appropriate given the active church and adjacent burial ground.
Notable Entities
Walk the colonial churchyard, view the 1776 cannonball lodged in the south brick wall, and visit the grave of Rev. Nicholas Albertson Okeson — the longtime rector whose apparition is reported here. The nave dates to 1739, on the foundation of an earlier 1699 church.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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