USA > Virginia > Colonial churches; a series of sketches of churches in the original colony of Virginia, with pictures of each church > Part 11
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By the English statute these oaths were to be taken by all persons bearing any office, civil or military, and "all ecclesiastical persons," including preachers. In Virginia they were required of burgesses, judges and justices, attorneys, military officers, &c., as well as vestry- men. It is a little startling at first blush to remember that these oaths were taken, not once only, but again and again, by Washington, Mason, Henry, Jefferson and the rest up to the very outbreak of the Revolution. Yet the judgment of mankind has never held them guilty of violation of troth; and this not because "If it succeeds it is not treason," but because the oath implied a corresponding obligation on the part of the King to bear himself kingly and to be true on his own part. The Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence will be read in a new light when it is remembered that they were written, adopted and defended by honest men with these solemn avowals vividly before their minds and consciences.
Having thus protested in due form his loyalty and his orthodoxy, Washington took his place as one of the "twelve most able and dis- creet men of the Parish," whom the old statutes required to form the vestry. Both this and the succeeding vestry were composed of men who were his political and social peers as well as his friends. A number of them sat with him in the House of Burgesses or as Gentle- men Justices on the County Bench. Several bore or had borne a mil- itary commission. Most of them were, like himself, large planters; some being his near neighbors on the river and some having newer and
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less pretentious seats in the upper parts of the county. The vestry seems to have met statedly twice a year, and at other times as occa- sion demanded. The meetings were usually held at one of the churches, but occasionally at the house of one or another of the vestrymen; and sometimes they lasted two or three days. Attendance upon these meetings from Mount Vernon involved a ride, going and returning, of from fourteen to forty miles. The vestry records attest, however, the regularity with which Colonel Washington was present; and when it is remembered how frequently his public duties and private inter- ests took him out of the county one is readily convinced that he brought to the discharge of the duties of this office the same consci- entious purpose and fidelity which marked his career in more con- spicuous stations. In his diary, though kept irregularly during this period, there are frequent references to his attending vestry meetings, such as the following:
1768. "July 16. Went by Muddy Hole and Doeg Run to the Vestry at Pohick church stayed there till half after 3 oclock & only 4 members coming returned by Captn. McCartys & dined there."
"Septr. 9. Proceeded (from Alexandria) to the meeting of our Vestry at the new Church (Payne's) and lodged at Captn. Edwd. Payne's."
"Nov. 28. Went to the Vestry at Pohick Church."
1769. "Mar. 3. Went to the Vestry at Pohick Church and returned abt 11 oclock at night."
"Sept. 21. Capt. Posey called here in the morning & we went to a Vestry."
1772. "June 5. Met the Vestry at our new Church & came home in the afternoon."
1774. "Feb. 15. I went to a Vestry at the new Church & returned in ye afternoon."
It is pleasant to find George Mason, in writing to his neighbor and friend at Mount Vernon on a matter regarding organized opposition to the Stamp Act, adding a postscript to remind him that "next Friday is appointed for a meeting of the Vestry."
The duties of the vestry were, first of all, in the fall of each year, to estimate their probable expenses and to lay the parish levy of so many pounds of tobacco upon each "tithable" of the parish (every male white person and every colored person, male and female, above sixteen years of age, with a few exceptions, being tithable); and to appoint a collector, usually the county sheriff, and to take his bond.
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The levy was to be collected before the following April, and was usu- ally paid in warehouse notes or receipts for tobacco. From this all parish charges were paid, and first the minister's salary of 1,600 pounds of tobacco, with allowance for cask and shrinkage, which made over 1,000 pounds more. As compared with our country clergymen of to- day, the Colonial parson was well paid when tobacco brought a fair price. Even at the rate of two pence a pound, at which the salaries were compounded for the scarce year of 1758, four years' salary would build a large brick church. The vestry were required to provide a glebe for the minister, with convenient housing thereon, which he had to keep in repair. They had also to build sufficient churches and chapels for the parish, to provide necessary books and ornaments, and keep all in good condition. They employed lay readers, and chose their own ministers, their right of "presentation" being assured by law for one year after a vacancy occurred, but in practice being unlim- ited. They also provided for the poor of the parish and when neces- sary built a poor-house or work-house. They ordered out hands to work the public roads, and once in four years appointed commissioners to oversee the "processioning" of the bounds of lands in their parish and renewing the landmarks, and put their returns upon record.
The Church wardens were generally the executive and accounting officers of the vestry, having oversight of the church buildings and making repairs, and being charged with the relief of the poor and binding out orphans and indigent children as apprentices, making care- ful provision for their moral training and a meagre education. They had also to present to the court or grand jury persons guilty of Sab- bath breaking, of not attending church, or disturbing public worship, of drunkenness, profane swearing, and other more serious immoralities, and to receive the fines imposed in certain cases for the use of the par- ish. Church wardens were elected each year; and in Truro the more prominent or more willing vestrymen seem to have served in some sort of rotation. Washington held this office for three terms at least within ten years. The vestries on which he served were active and efficient bodies, doubtless unusually so, and the indications are that he bore his full share of their work. Yet one may assume that those long vestry meetings were not wholly given to discussion of parish affairs. We can imagine Washington, newly returned from the As- sembly of 1772, telling Parson Massey of the warm and lengthy de- bate in the Burgesses on the expediency of an American Episcopate,
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as he wrote of it to the Rev. Dr. Boucher, of Port Royal. He and the far-seeing Mason would, perhaps, be already discussing the possibility of disestablishment in case of a break with the Mother Country, the latter advocating it, the former maintaining that religion must be sup- ported by taxation, but willing that tithes paid by dissenters should go to the support of their own churches. And in those stirring days, when such men as George Mason, the radical, George Washington, the conservative, and George William Fairfax, the staunch loyalist, came together, we may be sure there were other matters which received grave consideration beside the laying of parish levies and the building of churches.
In the Library of Congress there is preserved, among the journals and other manuscript papers of General Washington, a single halfsheet of foolscap written on both sides in his most formal and precise hand and style. The paper gives the results of four elections of vestrymen held in Fairfax county in the months of March and July, 1765. Each page is divided into two columns. The first column on the first page is headed, "Vestry chosen for Truro Parish, 25th March 1765, with the number of votes to each." Below the names of the twelve vestrymen elected is the sub-heading, "Candidates then rejected," followed by sixteen more names. The second column has the same heading and sub-heading, except that Fairfax (parish) is substituted for Truro, and the date is 28th March, 1765. On the sec- ond page the two columns are respectively headed in precisely the same manner except that the date over the first, for Truro, is 22d July, 1765, and over the second, for Fairfax, is 25th July, 1765. The four columns contain a total of eighty-nine names, and each name is followed by the number of votes received except in the case of the rejected candidates in the first election in Truro, and one in the first in Fairfax. At the bottom of the second page the total number of votes received in each parish in their July election is divided by twelve, and the quotient is followed by the words, "Number of Votes." This gives the key to the meaning of the paper. Incidentally it also shows that on March 28th, Col. George Washington was chosen a vestryman of Fairfax parish, being fifth on the list and receiving 274 votes, and was not voted for at all in Truro; and that on July 22d of the same year he was chosen for the same office in Truro parish, being third on the list and receiving 259 votes, and was not voted for in Fairfax.
This interesting sheet fell into the hands of Jared Sparks, the la-
PAYNE'S CHURCH, FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA.
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borious but not always judicious first editor of Washington's writings, who, not understanding its import, published the lists of the two ves- tries elected in which Washington's name appears and suppressed all the rest; deducing therefrom the fact, "that he was chosen a vestry- man in each of those parishes," but adding, "How long he continued in that station I have no means of determining." (See his Life of Washington, p. 518, and Writings of Washington, Vol. XII., p. 400.) Following his lead, with an almost unvarying monotony later writers who have touched upon the matter (and they are many), have asserted that Washington was a vestryman in both Fairfax and Truro parishes. Prof. James A. Harrison, in his recent work, is, however, an excep- tion. Bishop Meade, evidently puzzled, copies from Sparks without comment. (Old Churches, etc., Vol. II., p. 270.) But even such wri- ters as Dr. Slaughter and Dr. J. M. Tunor have fallen into the snare. It will be interesting, then, to sift this matter out, and see how far it is true that Washington held this office in both parishes, whether at the same or at different times.
For years prior to the final division of Truro in 1765, there had ex- isted some dissatisfaction as to the conduct of parochial affairs, as is shown by the fact that as early as 1761 petitions were presented to the county court, and ordered certified to the General Assembly, pray- ing that the vestry be dissolved, and also that the parish be divided. This dissatisfaction may have arisen in the Southwestern section of the country, where lived a number of influential gentlemen, who had no church in their neighborhood and, apparently, no representation on the vestry. At all events we find that in November, 1764, a petition was presented in the House of Burgesses praying for a division of Truro into two distinct parishes, and it was "Ordered, that a Bill be brought in agreeable to the prayer of the said petitioners, and it is re- ferred to Mr. George Johnston and Mr. John West to prepare and bring in the same." Messrs. Johnston and West were the Burgesses from Fairfax, and both lived in what was to be the new parish. It was but natural that these distinguished gentlemen should wish their parish to be strong, and certainly the Bill which they drew, and which was passed within one week, gave to the new parish of Fairfax the lion's share of the spoils. The division took effect February 1, 1765, by a line running up Doeg creek to Mr. George Washington's mill and thence northwesterly to the plantation of John Munroe and on to the Loudoun county line. This put Mount Vernon and several large adjoining plan-
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tations into the new parish, separating them from Pohick, the only church left in Truro, to which they naturally belonged, both from proximity and association. The act is found in Hening, Vol. VIII., p. 43. Under it were held the elections of March 25th and 28th, when Washington was chosen a vestryman of Fairfax parish, in which he was a resident.
That this parish was ever organized, or that this vestry ever met or even qualified there is not a line of record to show, and it is in a high degree improbable. The next court, the first at which they would have to take the oaths, met on the third Monday in April, but its records are lost. But the manifestly unfair division was meeting with per- sistent opposition. When the House of Burgesses met again on the 1st of May, petitions and counter-petitions, which must. have taken some time to prepare, came pouring in from Truro praying for a new division on lines therein proposed, and from Fairfax, suggesting still other lines if a new division was to be had. On May 14th these were referred to the Committee on Propositions and Grievances with in- structions to "examine into the allegations thereof, and report the same, with their opinion thereupon, to the House." Of this commit- tee, Mr. Johnson, of Fairfax, and Mr. Washington, who at that time represented Frederick county, were members. The committee on the next day reported two propositions, the first of which, based on the petition from Truro, was rejected, and the committee were instructed to bring in a Bill pursuant to the second, granting a new division, but on lines asked for by sundry inhabitants of the parish of Fairfax. The Bill was presented, recommitted, reported again with amendments, passed May 22d, agreed to by the council, and signed by the Governor June 1st, so becoming a law on that date. (See the Journal of that Session of the Burgesses, and, for the Act, Hening, Vol. VIII., p. 157. But note that the running title at the head of the page in Hening is misleading as to the date.) The preamble recites that the former act "made a very unequal division of the parish, by leaving nearly double the number of tithables in the new parish of Fairfax that there are in Truro parish," and proceeds to repeal that act in toto, and to pro- vide for the formation of a new parish of Fairfax to date from June 7, 1765; the line to run up Little Hunting creek to the Gum Spring thereon, thence to the ford over Dogue Run, where the back road from Colchester to Alexandria crosses, thence by a straight line to the forks of Difficult, the Loudoun line. By this act, which is drawn with un-
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usual minuteness of detail and seems to bear the marks of his own hand, Washington and his neighbors seated on the neck between Doeg, or Dogue creek, on the south, and Little Hunting creek, on the north, were restored to Truro; and at the new elections held under its pro- visions, July 22d and 25th, he was again chosen a vestryman for his old parish of Truro, in which now he resided, as was also Captain John Posey, who had been chosen with him in March for Fairfax parish.
The purpose of the paper which Washington took such pains to pre- pare, showing the results of the March, and afterwards of the July elections of the vestry, may now be readily understood in the light of the statement in the preamble of the above act that the first division was "very unequal." The first page shows at a glance that there were about 100 more voters in Fairfax than in Truro at the March elections. As these voters were freeholders, and, with their employees and slaves, were tithables, this meant a great deal. The second elections, however, give a different showing, and the calculation made by himself indi- cates a difference of only twenty-one voters in the two parishes. No doubt he was gratified to find the new line of division so satisfactory in this regard.
We find, then, that for two months and three days Washington was a vestryman-elect of the first parish of Fairfax, the nominal life of that parish being exactly four months; that the vestry could not have qualified until about three weeks after their election, before which time numerous petitions must have been in circulation, making it probable that a new parish would be formed and a new election or- dered almost immediately, and that within ten days thereafter Wash- ington was probably on his way to Williamsburg to take part in the accomplishment of this. In the absence of any direct evidence it is not probable that he ever qualified or acted as vestryman of that. parish.
That he was never a vestryman in the second, or present, Fairfax parish the vestry book itself is a sufficient witness. The fact that when means were lacking to finish Christ church in Alexandria, he joined with certain gentlemen, who were vestrymen there, in subscrib- ing for pews in the church, has been thought to indicate the contrary; but in a letter of February 15, 1773, to Captain John Dalton, a vestry- man of that church, he writes indignantly of a proposition he under- stands was being considered by "your Vestry" to return these sub-
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scriptions and reclaim the pews, and "as a parishioner" and "as a subscriber, who meant to lay the foundation of a family pew in the new church," he protests against it. He, however, attended this church frequently before the Revolution and regularly after his re- turn to Mount Vernon, Pohick being then closed.
The new vestry of Truro found much to engage their attention. The glebe and buildings and the church plate were to be appraised by cer- tain appointed commissioners and their value apportioned between the two parishes in proportion to their number of tithables, and also fifty thousand pounds of tobacco, which had been collected for build- ing churches. Eighteen months after the division they were still ac- counting to the other parish for collections made for the rebuilding of Falls church, which had been ordered just after Washington first be- came a vestryman. As a Churchwarden at this time, he would have his full share in this business. But the larger work to which they devoted their immediate efforts was the erection of the "Upper Church," or Payne's church, as it was long afterwards known from the name of its builder, in the western section of the parish, which until now had been without a church building. The site of this church is two miles south of the present Fairfax Courthouse, immediately on the road to Fairfax station, in what was then but a thinly settled part of the country. It speaks well for Washington and his fellow-vestry- men on the river that they should have taxed themselves heavily to build so substantial and handsome a church in what must have been almost the backwoods, deferring meanwhile the rebuilding of their own Pohick church. The vestry records tell the story:
"At a Vestry held for Truro parish, the 28th, 29th and 30th days of November, 1765. Present, Mr. Edw. Payne, Colo. Geo. Washington, Capt. Posey, Capt. Daniel McCarty, Colo. Geo. William Fairfax, Mr. William Gardner, Mr. Thos. Withers Coffer, Mr. William Linton, Mr. Thomas Ford and Mr. Alex. Henderson. Ordered that the vestry meet at Mr. William Gardner's on the first Monday in February next, in order to agree with workmen to undertake the building of a brick church, to contain 1,600 superficial feet. And that the church wardens advertise the same in as publick a manner as may be."
"At a Vestry held for Truro Parish at Mr. William Gardner's on the 3d. and 4th. days of February, 1766. Present (as above except Capt. Posey), who being there met to inquire the most convenient place to erect a new church and to agree with the Workmen to Build the same-
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Resolv'd that the new Church be built on the Middle Ridge near the Ox Road, the ground to be laid off by Mr. Edward Payne, Mr. Wm. Gardner, Mr. Thos. Withers Coffer and Mr. Thos. Ford, or any three of them on the land supposed to be belonging to Mr. Thomazen Ellzey, who, being present, consents to the same." (Mr. Ellzey was a vestry- man-elect, but perhaps had not qualified. The remaining member was Col. George Mason.)
"Agreeable to a Plan and Article annexed thereto Mr. Edward Payne hath undertaken to build the said Church for the sum of Five hundred and seventy-Line Pounds Virginia Currency."
"Ordered that Mr. Edward Payne pay to - John Ayres forty shil- lings for his plan and estimate."
"Ordered that Colo. Geo. Washington, C ... t. Daniel McCarty, Colo. Geo. Wm. Fairfax, Mr. Alex. Henderson, & Mr. Tho. Ford, or any three of them, do view and examine the said building from time to time as shall be required."
There follows the "Memorandum of Agreement" between Capt. Payne and the vestry, which only lack of space forbids publishing in full as a model. The building was to be 531% by 30 feet in the clear, the walls 22 feet high; "to be built of good bricks, well burnt, of the ordi- nary size, that is, nine inches long, four & an half inches broad & 3 inches thick, the outside bricks to be laid in mortar two-thirds lime and 1/3 sand, the inside Bricks to be laid with mortar half lime & half sand. The corners of the House, the Windows and the Doors to be of rubled brick. The arches and Pediment heads of the Doors and Win- dows to be of bricks rubbed, gauged and set in Putty. The Window and Door frames to be made with double Archatraves .- The Iles to be laid with Brick Tyle .- To have an Altar Piece sixteen feet high and twelve feet wide, and done with wainscot after the Ionic order .- The Pulpit, Canopy & reading Desks to be of black Walnut, wainscoted with proper Cornish. The Gallery to be supported by Collumns turned & fluted, to come out as far as the second window at the West end of the Church, to have a wainscoted front, & to have four seats raised one behind and above another." The flooring was to be 11% inches thick. Pews to be wainscoted with pine plank 11 inches thick, "dou- tle work on each side of the framing and raised pannel on one side." Chancel rail and banisters of walnut. "The roof to be covered with inch pine plank, cyp(h)ered & lapt one & an half inches, and to be Shingled with good Cypress shingles twenty inches in length, & to
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show six inches." The church could hardly be built at this day, if at all, for less than ten thousand dollars. Capt. Payne was given two years and eight months to complete it; and it was received by the Vestry three weeks ahead of contract time. Before it was finished a "Vestry House" was ordered to be built in the churchyard, to be of brick, twenty by sixteen feet in the clear. Later the churchyard was ordered inclosed with posts and rails.
The after history of Payne's church is the same sad story as that of so many of its contemporaries. During the dark days which followed the Revolution it was used probably very occasionally at first, and was finally abandoned, for the lack, as we imagine, cf a minister, rather than of a congregation, for dissent does not appear to have been rife in this parish. About the beginning of the last century it was occu- pied by the Baptists, and upon the division in that denomination about 1840, the Jerusalem Baptist church (New School), was organized in the building and continued to use it until 1862. A faded photograph, taken in 1861, shows an attractive church in good preservation, with high arched windows and massive hipped roof. In the winter of 1862-63 a Federal army was encamped in the vicinity, and by them the church was torn down, brick by brick, and the material used to build chimneys and hearths for their winter quarters. The old grave- stones in the churchyard, which was a large and very old burying- ground, probably shared the same fate, as only two or three remain. A small frame Baptist church now covers part of the site. Of the old Payne's church naught remains but a heap of rubbish, from which may yet be taken pieces of brick, rough but exceedingly hard and "well burnt," with the "mortar, two-thirds lime and one-third sand," still clinging to them to attest, after an hundred and forty years, the hon- est workmanship of Captain Edward Payne, Churchwarden and Church- builder.
Unlike many of our Colonial churches which fell into other hands, the interior of Payne's escaped alteration or so-called improvement. Those who recall the building remember well the square pews, the lofty pulpit with its "canopy" or sounding board against the south wall, and the reading desk and (probably) Clark's desk below, and the chancel and high "Altar-Piece" at the east end. The silver Communion service belonging to this church was restored to the Rev. W. F. Lock- wood about 1845 by an old lady living in the neighborhood, and was presented by him to St. John's church, Centerville, where it is still in use.
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To return to the old Vestry: No sooner was Payne's church com- pleted than the building of a new church at Pohick was undertaken; the story of which, and of Washington's large part therein, will doubt- less be told by a more capable pen in another paper. Until called to the North in the service of his country, Washington continued in ac- tive and untiring service as a vestryman, and nominally held the office during the Revolutionary war.
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