Empie retired for health and financial reasons to North Carolina, the next rector was George Cummins, a powerful preacher and writer, who also supported the American Colonization Society.

The Richmond congregation's next rector, Joshua Peterkin (1814–1892), son of an officer from Baltimore who served in both the Army and Navy, led the parish from 1855 until his death 37 years later, assisted by several young priests, including his son, George William Peterkin, who became the first bishop of the Diocese of West Virginia.

This church was originally located about a block from Richmond's slave market and built a gallery for African-American congregants.

Peterkin believed in educating all races, and soon reestablished the school to teach African Americans which Dr. Empie had established in 1845.

Peterkin's secessionist sermon in January 1861 prompted protest from Unionist lawyer and representative John Minor Botts.

The St. James congregation, which had been Richmond's largest at the start of the American Civil War, lost many parishioners, including General J.E.B.

[6] Parishioner Sally Tompkins established a private hospital to nurse Confederate casualties, and when those were outlawed, accepted a commission so her work could continue (thus becoming the Confederate Army's only female officer, as well as being so skilled that only 73 of 1,333 soldiers admitted to her care succumbed to wounds or disease by 1865).

The Peterkins founded the first Virginia circle (chapter) of the International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons as well as the city's Sheltering Arms Hospital, to serve those unable to afford medical care for lack of both insurance and military pensions, consistent with the Social Gospel movement.

Also, in 1875, parishioner Frederick W. Hanewinckel donated a home for the benefit of indigent Episcopal women, on whose board Mrs. Peterkin served for many years.

[8] In 1894, parishioner Mary Tinsley Greenhow founded the Virginia Home for Incurables, as well as continued the recently deceased Rebekah Peterkin's work at Sheltering Arms Hospital for decades.

He and his assistants helped establish three other Richmond parishes: St. Mark's,[9] Moore Memorial (commemorating Virginia's second bishop, but later combined and renamed Grace and Holy Trinity),[10] and St. Philip's (Richmond's first black Episcopal parish, formed from members of the Sunday school and on North Fourth Street only blocks away from St.

John K. Mason, advocated moving the church to the city's west end, the Fan District then being developed and the existing structure needing considerable repairs, even after donations made in connection with the General Convention held in Richmond in 1907.

The cornerstone for the current building, near Stuart Circle and Monument Avenue, was laid on May 17, 1912, and the future structure consecrated by Bishop Robert A. Gibson.

Churchill J. Gibson was the next long-term rector, serving from October 1929 until his retirement in April 1957 (shortly after the congregation expanded the Sunday School building and renamed it in his honor).

Under the leadership of then-rector Reverend Robert Trache, the sanctuary of the church was rebuilt and rededicated in 1997, and now includes C. B. Fisk's Opus 112, one of the finest pipe organs in North America.

Richmond's firefighters managed to save the nave's ten stained glass windows, four from the Louis C. Tiffany studios, and it also received three sets of 19th century panels (from the M.T.Lamb studios in Brooklyn, New York) from the Monumental Church, which was at the time being restored to its original state as a memorial to those who died in the Great Theater Fire of 1811.

Also, in 1951 the United Daughters of the Confederacy donated stained glass windows memorializing General J. E. B. Stuart, and, a century after her death, another commemorating Capt.