Peninsula In Passage

Belleville was renowned for its a cappella singers who also sang for Chamber of Commerce and Ruritan Club events and starred annually at the Tidewater Fair. In 1927 the church choir sang with 100 voices. The church’s appreciation for music carried over into the 21st century with a series of annual Jazz and Summer Breeze concerts that brought national artists to the lawn at the rear of the Temple. Thousands of spectators came to enjoy R & B and soul artists including Freddie Jackson, En Vogue, Christopher Williams, Regina Belle, Melba Moore, Roy Ayers, Ray Goodman and Brown and legendary Motown groups – the Chi Lites Manhattans, the Stylistics, and the Temptations. After 2010 the stalled economy also stalled the concert series until better times. As Belleville grew three days a week were set aside for sports from horseshoe pitching to soccer and boxing. Bishop William H. Plummer, in addition to all his other talents, was a skillful baseball coach and developed teams that competed admirably against prominent teams in the famed Negro League. Belleville baseball was run on a “farm” system, much like the major leagues. Three minor league teams, named the Yellow Jackets, fed players to the Belleville Grays who played Sunday afternoons to a crowd of two to three thousand spectators from across Hampton Roads. In August 1920 Bishop Plummer moved the Headquarters of the Church from Philadelphia to Belleville and two years later welcomed Saints from around the country to their annual assembly there. The Passover celebration in April 1923 drew 2500 worshippers and headlines in the local newspapers. Two cemeteries along Bridge Road hold graves of church members and leaders including Prophet William Saunders Crowdy, a Civil War veteran, who felt a call from God to found the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1892. Crowdy also felt directed by God to buy farmland in 1903 in Nansemond County as a home for the Saints and he bought 40 acres. But the financial struggles of the fledgling church forced foreclosure and local farmer John Eberwine bought the property at auction in 1909. When Plummer became church leader in 1917 one of his priorities was to redeem that land. According to church history, in 1919 Eberwine withstood opposition from other local white farmers and sold the land back to the church.

Bishop William Henry Plummer, 1868-1931

Prophet William Saunders Crowdy, 1847-1908