The Anglican (Episcopal) faith was brought to Virginia's Eastern Shore by English settlers migrating across the Chesapeake Bay from the Jamestown Settlement beginning in the 1620s.

During the American Civil War, the Union Army occupied the Eastern Shore (Delmarva Peninsula) from Hampton Roads northwards.

Union troops protecting a strategic telephone line camped nearby, and housed their horses in the church's box pews, which were heavily damaged.

By the end of the Civil War, St. George's Church stood in ruin, one of its four wings completely dismantled and all interior furnishing destroyed.

Episcopalians reclaimed the church in 1880 and partially restored it by using the remnants of the original walls to patch the transept which still stands today.