It was also the name of an English sailing ship, Merchant's Hope, which plied the Atlantic bringing emigrants to Virginia in the early 17th-century.

It was located on the former site of Powellbrooke Plantation, whose owner Captain Nathaniel Powell (one of the original 1607 colonists), his wife, and ten others were killed during the Indian massacre of 1622.

The 4,200 acre (17 km2) James River National Wildlife Refuge now encompasses much of the land that was Merchant's Hope Plantation during the 17th century.

Rubbed brick including queen closers are present in the doorways, the window trim, and at all four corners of the building.

The door's wooden trim contains curved cyma reversa, a reversed S-shaped molding, pieces separating three panes.

[11] The south door is identical in detail with the exception that it is a shorter, rectangular opening in the chancel end of the church with a flat arch at the top.

The wood work on the windows, like the west doorway, is a reverse S-curve, and the muntins are one inch thick.

[16] It was reconstructed and now resembles the general room church configuration with the exception that the T-shaped aisle has been altered to an L-shaped one with the top of the L at the west door and the stem at the south.

[17] The west gallery still has its original stairway and rail [14] with asymmetrical balusters characteristic of the early eighteenth century.

[18] On the east wall is a communion table centered between the windows and tablets of obligatory scripts: from left to right, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments (Exodus XX), and the Apostles' Creed.

The present structure of a high door step combined with a low floor is most unlikely to be an original construction characteristic.

[25] Symbolism and Structure This church contains the most pure example of the essential elements of a rectangular room church [26] that include: In addition, Upton writes extensively on the symbolism embedded in the general features of the building citing particularly the tendency toward pediments and domes: He also states that the combination of a compass pediment on the west door and a triangular pediment on the south was characteristic of early eighteenth-century churches in Virginia: Hence the plaster, domed ceiling that symbolically suggests the transition from the secular to the rarefied spiritual world.

This transition is also accomplished by the symbolic journey a parishioner takes when entering the church; he progresses from the secular world through the arched west doorway, passes the baptismal font symbolic of entry to the church,[28] walks under a representation of the sacred dome to the pews from which he progresses to the east [29] to take the communion meal from a simple table at the chancel rail from which he can see the sacred texts through the clear light from the large east windows.

[31] Conclusion All things considered this building is the purest surviving example of the Virginia vernacular church of the colonial era.

Because of its excellent state of preservation and the details of its masonry, its exterior, which is so devoid of unnecessary adornment, represents the supremely classical example of ecclesiastical architecture in colonial Virginia.".

The silver communion set on display was made in Charleston, South Carolina, and dedicated on the 200th anniversary of the parish in 1857.

In 1974 a Tetragrammaton, originally erected as a decorative motif in the old St Mary Abbots church in London, England in 1696, was given to Merchants Hope under the condition that it be restored.

The church has also undergone more recent renovations that have included masonry repairs to stabilize the structure, the installation of a modern heating and air conditioning system, a security system, and the removal of a slate roof added during the initial restoration that had caused cracking and significant sagging of the roof trusses that were also repaired.