Introduction

Words: Will­iam Heav­ner, 2005.

Music: Ope­quon Church, Will­iam Heav­ner, 2003 (🔊 pdf nwc).

PSALM OF THE VALLEY © 2005 William Heavner
OPEQUON CHURCH © 2003 William Heavner
The author gives permission for use in worship services.
Commercial rights reserved by the composer.
For further information contact: William Heavner, Opequon Pres­by­ter­ian Church,
317 Opequon Church Lane, Winchester, VA 22602, USA (540-662-1843)

This hymn was com­posed for the de­di­ca­tion of the fifth sanc­tu­ary to be built at Ope­quon Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Win­ches­ter, Vir­gin­ia.

Opequon was found­ed in 1732 by the first Eu­ro­pe­an set­tlers to the Shen­an­do­ah Val­ley of Vir­gin­ia. These ear­ly Ger­man, Scot, Iri­sh, and French set­tlers were of the re­formed faith. They first set­tled among the to­ler­ant Quak­ers of Penn­syl­van­ia. They longed for a place away from the es­tab­lished Eng­lish and Ro­man church­es where they could wor­ship free­ly in their own sim­ple but for­mal man­ner.

When word reached them that the Shen­an­do­ah Val­ley was open for set­tle­ment, they head­ed west, then south, down the Old Wag­on Road (to­day’s U.S. 11 and In­ter­state 81), to es­tab­lish the old­est con­gre­ga­tion west of the Blue Ridge Mount­ains.

From the first sim­ple log build­ing in the wil­der­ness where a teen­aged sur­vey­or was among the wor­ship­ers, to a larg­er log build­ing con­struct­ed dur­ing the time when that same sur­vey­or re­turned as a col­onel to over­see the con­struc­tion of a line of de­fens­ive fron­tier forts dur­ing the French and In­dian War.

Three years before the sur­vey­or, turned co­lo­nel, and later ge­ne­ral, was about to take the oath of of­fice as the first pre­si­dent of the Unit­ed States, a dig­ni­fied stone meet­ing house was con­struct­ed. The build­ing stood for sev­en dec­ades be­fore Ge­ne­ral Stone­wall Jack­son suf­fered his on­ly defeat there at the First Bat­tle of Kerns­town.

Heavily dam­aged and stripped of its in­ter­ior, the build­ing sta­bled hors­es dur­ing the oc­cu­pa­tion that fol­lowed the Se­cond Bat­tle of Kerns­town. As soon as pos­si­ble af­ter the end of the war, the con­gre­ga­tion re­stored their meet­ing house, on­ly to see it gut­ted by fire with­in a month.

Even with­out a build­ing of their own for the first time in 140 years, the now small con­gre­ga­tion con­tin­ued to wor­ship to­geth­er. Af­ter 20 years of shar­ing the neigh­bor­ing church­es of the Me­tho­dists and Men­non­ites, the con­gre­ga­tion was able to re­build their own church. From the re­claimed scorched stones of their old meet­ing house, they built a sim­ple late Vic­to­ri­an church build­ing. For more than a cen­tu­ry this small­er sanc­tu­ary pro­vid­ed the wor­ship space un­til con­struc­tion of the pres­ent gen­er­ous sanc­tu­ary.

The tune was first played at the ground break­ing ser­vice for the fifth sanc­tu­ary of the church.

William Heavner, 2006