Ware Church was built upon land donated from the estate called Mordecia Mount, the original seat of the Cooke family and later of the Throckmorton family, who donated the land for the building of the church.
Ware Parish, in Gloucester County, was established about 1653. The first church was near Ware River, on the present Glen Roy farm, then known as the Glebe. In 1680 a petition was presented to the colonial Court and Council that a second church building be allowed in the parish, which building, in the absence of positive records, tradition says is the present church, finished in 1690, about two miles inland, near the head of Ware River.
Standing in the midst of its old cemetery, enclosed with a colonial brick wall and surrounded by sturdy oaks, walnuts and pines of virgin growth, which affords sanctuary to every songbird of this country, Ware Church is one of the most hallowed and peaceful spots in this early Christian settlement of the Old Dominion, and proves the loyalty of its congregations in that it has been ministered to by every bishop of the diocese from Bishop Madison, on May 3, 1792, to the present bishop.