Calvary Episcopal Church (Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee)

St. James Episcopal Church was founded in 1878. Its small white frame church building was completed the following year in a Gothic Revival style. The church was consecrated by Bishop Charles Quintard in August 1882.^[2]

The builders of the church were Captain James Pierre Drouillard and his wife, born Mary Florence Kirkman.^[2][3] Mary Florence Kirkman Drouillard was the granddaughter of Anthony Wayne Van Leer, who was a member of a well known historical family in Pennsylvania and noted in the anti-slavery cause.^[4] Van Leer purchased the notable iron works at Cumberland Furnace.^[2][3][5] She was heiress to the iron works in Cumberland Furnace as well as 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of land in the vicinity.^[2][3] Drouillard was a West Point graduate who served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War; Mary Florence Kirkman shocked Nashville society when she married him there in 1864 (while the state of Tennessee was still at war with the Union).^[3][6] For several years, the Drouillards made their home in Cumberland Furnace and oversaw the operation of the iron works.^[3][5] In 1870 they built their three-story Italianate mansion home, now known as Drouillard House, on a site that overlooks the community.^[2][3][7] They also constructed a school for both black and white children on the land where the church's parish hall now stands.^[2][3] In 1882, the Drouillards transferred the church to the Protestant Episcopal Church of Tennessee for $5.^[8] The Drouillards left Cumberland Furnace in 1886 and took up residence in Nashville.^[3][5] The church building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.^[1]

During the 1980s, St. James established a "daughter" church in Dickson. During the 1990s, the church in Dickson was redesignated as St. James Episcopal Church and the church in Cumberland Furnace became a mission church, renamed Calvary Church.^[2]