and lasted until 1798 or 1799, there was very little interest taken in religious matters; but when the Rev. James P. Hull came to Augusta to preach, by the invitation of a number of citizens, the attendance at church increased to such an extent that the seating capacity of St. Paul's was unequal to the emergency.
Between this date and the year 1818, there appears to have been no divine ministrations under the exclusive auspices of the Protestant Episcopal denomination within the porches of St. Paul's Church. The glebe lands, consisting of fifteen acres, to which the parish church was originally entitled, have been lost, or absorbed within the control and possession of the trustees of the Richmond County Academy. During the last two years of the past century, and the first eighteen years of the present, St. Paul's Church, under the supervision of the trustees of the Richmond Academy, appears to have been used as a place of worship by all denominations of Christians.
IN the year 1804 the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, was organized.
For the first ten years the clergyman in charge was an Episcopal rector, but in 1804 the Presbyterians of the flock organized themselves into a church and the trustees of the Richmond Academy agreed to lease the building to them for a year. The Rev. Washington McKnight was called to the pastorate.
