USA > Virginia > Fairfax County > Fairfax County > The history of Truro Parish in Virginia > Part 9
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In discussing Washington's habits in regard to church attendance he first quotes the well known testimony of the Rev. Lee Massey, his pastor and close personal friend, as follows :- "I never knew so constant an attendant at Church as Washing- ton. And his behavior in the house of God was ever so deeply reverential that it produced the happiest effect on my congregation, and greatly assisted me in my pulpit labors. No company ever
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withheld him from Church. I have been at Mount Vernon on Sabbath morning when his breakfast table was filled with guests; but to him they fur- nished no pretext for neglecting his God and los- ing the satisfaction of setting a good example. For instead of staying at home, out of false complais- ance to them, he used constantly to invite them to accompany him."
The author thereupon expresses the opinion that this was "Written more with an eye to its in- fluence on others than to its strict accuracy;" and continues,-"During the time Washington at- tended at Pohick Church he was by no means a strict Church goer. His daily 'Where and How my Time is Spent' enables us to know exactly how often he attended Church, and in the year 1760 (?) he went just sixteen times and in 1768 he went fourteeen, these years being fairly typical of the period 1760-1773."
As to the veracity of the Rev. Mr. Massey, whose testimony is so summarily set aside as dis- ingenuous, we have the witness of his friends and neighbors, the Vestrymen of his Parish, who, as we have seen, certified over their own signatures to "His moral character and unexceptionable life and conversation." He seems indeed to have been a man of almost super-conscientiousness. He re- tired from the practice of law because, as his grandson, Col. J. T. Stoddert, a gentleman of the highest standing, who remembered him well,
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states, "His conscience would not suffer him 'to make the worse appear the better reason,' and to uphold wrong against right. He tried to follow the lead of Chancellor Wythe, to examine cases placed in his care and to accept the good and re- ject the bad. It proved a failure, and he withdrew from practise. He recommended me to read law," he continues, "but earnestly opposed my pursuing it as a vocation. He was a good judge of charac- ter. He loved virtue and hated vice intensely. His integrity and honour were of the highest or- der, and he detested all meanness and double deal- ing with his whole heart."
Such was the character borne by Mr. Massey, who certainly had the best opportunity possible to know the facts in the case. And his statement agrees with that of others who, to go no further afield, were members of Washington's household. Mrs. Custis, who spent two years at Mount Ver- non, testifies to "His extraordinary punctuality in attending Church and his reverent behavior there." And his ward, George Washington Parke Custis, of Arlington, wrote of him: "Washington was a strict and decorous observer of the Sabbath. He always attended divine service in the morning, and read a sermon or some portion of the Bible to Mrs. Washington in the afternoon." Mr. Custis is speaking of the period when Washington was President and had opportunity to attend Church regularly.
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Figures standing alone are often seriously mis- leading, and those by which the testimony of Mr. Massey is sought to be impeached need some ex- planation. In the first place it is not quite certain that we can gather from Washington's diary "Ex- actly how often he attended Church." The cus- tomary and habitual is just what is usually omitted from a journal in which the record of a day is com- pressed within the compass of a few lines. A care- ful reading of this diary, kept for some years on the blank pages of interleaved almanacs and after- wards in small note-books, will show that while at home at Mount Vernon it was chiefly a record of the company he entertained, of his visits to his friends, of his surveys, his adventures in the hunt- ing field, etc. On Sundays he would sometimes mention going to Church quite incidentally, and it is seen that for a month or two he attended about as regularly as services were held. Then for two or more months perhaps there will be no mention of Church at all, and no explanation of why he did not attend if he did not. But when, for instance, he "Dined at Belvior" with such and such guests he might very well have gone to Church on the way, or the neighbors he had to dinner he would quite likely have brought from Church with him. The more usual record for Sundays, however, is "At home all day," or "At home all day alone." This would seem conclusive until we find that it is also a common formula for week days on which
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there was nothing of special note to record. It may simply mean that he dined at home without company; and especially so if he failed to make the entry on Sunday night but deferred it until he would be at his desk on Monday. Very occasion- ally he gives a reason why he was "prevented from Church."
But even if we grant that the above estimate of Washington's attendance at Church is substan- tially correct, other considerations must be borne in mind or our conclusions will be wholly at fault. It must be remembered that from 1760 to 1765 there was but one minister in the whole of Fair- fax County, and he an old man in failing health. Mr. Green ministered alternately at three Churches, situated at a distance of about nine, te:1, and eighteen miles respectively from Mount Ver- non. This would allow him to preach seventeen or eighteen times in a year at Pohick. After the division of the Parish Mr. Massey had but two Churches and could preach twenty-six times a year at each, when the weather, the numerous water courses, and the state of the primitive road- ways through marsh and forest permitted a con- gregation to gather from distances of from five to fifteen miles. Residents of Fairfax can appreciate what eighteen miles, going and coming, in the Mount Vernon "chariot" or even on horseback, must have meant; and can still understand the statement of Mrs. Nellie Custis Lewis that Wash-
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ington attended Church "When the weather and roads permitted." Moreover Washington was ab- sent from home for several months of each year, frequently in the wilds of western Virginia or on the Ohio. While visiting relatives in the lower counties he mentions frequently the Churchies he attended, probably as interesting memoranda, ard the same was the case when he was in Philadel- phia. At the Berkeley Springs he twice "attended Church forenoon and afternoon." At Fredericks- burg he "Went to prayers (lay reading) and dined afterwards at Col. Lewis." On hearing that the smallpox had broken out among his servants in Frederick, he starts at once to visit them and "Took Church on my way to Colemans." These and many such references indicate his habit. The argument from silence is never a very safe one, and his frequently omitting to mention going to Church in the regular routine of life at Mount Ver- non does not, we think, prove that he was "By no means a strict Church goer," especially in view of the conditions existing.
It is interesting to note that twice within two weeks Washington makes record of having stood as Sponsor at the baptism of infants. According to the best evidence we have he was a regular Com- municant during the period under discussion. In 1770 and in 1772 he mentions being at Church on Christmas day, which was always a Communion occasion.
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THE DISESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA
To one of the old Vestrymen of Truro has been accorded by universal acclaim the title of Father of his Country, chiefly because of his pre-emi- nent leadership in her struggle for Independence. To another of these Vestrymen belongs the title of the Father of Religious Liberty. It is to George Mason that religion in America is indebted for the first clear and certain note proclaiming her right to be free, proceeding not from the bias of the partisan but from the wisdom of profound statesmanship. To him, too, more than to any other, the Church in Virginia owes her emancipa- tion from the bonds of her vassalage to the State; bonds which had been her support once, and on which she still leaned with a woeful persistency, but which had almost crushed out her very life. From the dawn of American independence Mason saw not only the political necessity and the inher- ent justice of the complete separation of the Church from the State, but must have recognized also, with many others, that the existence of the Church of which he was a devoted adherent would ultimately depend upon her being freed from her
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political dependence and forced to rely upon the voluntary and intelligent support of her own chil- dren. Having adopted these views he pursued them to the end with a consistency and clearness of vision which was rare among his contem- poraries.
The various Acts of the General Assembly by which the complete disestablishment of the Church was brought about were the following.
On the 12th of June, 1776, the State Conven- tion, composed almost wholly of Churchmen, adopted without a dissenting voice, that famous "Declaration of Rights" which declared in its con- cluding article "That religion, or the duty which we owe to our CREATOR, and the manner of dis- charging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity, towards each other." This "Bill of Rights," as it is usually called, was from the pen of Mason, and while it is quite possible that some in the Convention failed to perceive its full significance, it led, as it was mean to lead, to the withdrawal by the State of all support or supervision of religion.
The first General Assembly of the Common- wealth under the new Constitution met in Octo- ber, 1776. Among its earliest Acts was the one
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entitled, "An Act for exempting the different so- cieties of Dissenters from contributing to the sup- port and maintenance of the church as by law es- tablished, and its ministers, and for other pur- poses therein mentioned." Mason was Chairman of the Committee which brought in this Act, and it is supposed to have been written by his own hand. The Act is very long, almost every section having its own explanatory preamble. The first section repeals within this Commonwealth all Acts of Parliament directed against dissent or dissent- ers. The second exempts all dissenters from the established Church from all levies, taxes, and im- positions whatever towards supporting and main- taining the said Church or its ministers. The Vestries, however, could still levy on all tithables for arrears in the salaries of ministers, for paro- chial engagements already entered into, and for
the poor. Section four contains this important provision : "That there shall in all time coming be saved and reserved to the use of the Church as by law established the several tracts of Glebe lands already purchased, the churches and chapels al- ready built,-all books, plate, and ornaments, be- longing or appropriated to the use of the said church," and to each parish all private donations which may have been made to it. The next sec- tions reserve for future determination, when the opinion of the country shall be better known, the question whether the support of ministers and
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teachers of the gospel of the different denomina- tions shall be provided for by a general assessment or be left to voluntary contributions. And be- cause the support of the clergy might fall too heav- ily on the members of the established Church in some parishes under the exemptions allowed dis- senters, they were left to be supported for the present by voluntary contributions, and all acts for the support of the clergy by levies were suspended until the end of the next session of the Assembly. The remaining sections provide for taking lists of tithables.
The act for the support of the clergy continued to be suspended from time to time by the Assem- bly until the session of October, 1779, when so much of that act, and of every other act, as pro- vided for salaries for the ministers of the Church of England, and authorizing levies for the sanie, was finally repealed.
The question between assessments and volun- tary contributions was, however, still undecided. During the session of Assembly beginning Octo- ber, 1784, a measure was introduced known as the Assessment Bill, providing for the legal support of ministers and teachers of religion of all denomina- tions by a general assessment upon the people of the State. It was supported by Edmund Ran- dolph, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, John Page, Edmund Pendleton and others, while a de- termined opposition was led by James Madison.
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When the measure was about to pass Madison suc- ceeded in having the final vote deferred until the next session. In the meantime, at the urgent sug- gestion of Mason, Nicholas and others, he pre- pared the famous "Memorial and Remonstrance" which was printed and circulated broadcast for sig- natures. Of these it received so many that at the following session of the Assembly the bill was readily defeated, and the principle of the support of religion by voluntary contributions was tacitly adopted.
Mason was active in circulating the Remon- strance, and among others he sent a copy to Gen- eral Washington, his late fellow Vestryman. Washington wrote him in reply from Mount Ver- non, Oct. 3rd, 1785: "Although no mans senti- ments are more opposed to any kind of restraint upon religious principles than mine are, yet I must confess that I am not amongst the number of those who are so much alarmed at the thought of making people pay toward the support of that which they profess, if of the denomination of Chris- tians, or declare themselves Jews, Mohammedons, or otherwise, and thereby obtain proper relief." But he thought the bill unfortunate at that time, and that it would be impolitic to make it a law.
The fight over this measure was one of the most strenuous and persistent that had ever engaged the Virginia Legislature. That it should have been advocated by so many great Statesmen and
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devoted Churchmen is a surprise to us at this day. The tradition and custom of many centuries was hard to be overcome, and the maintenance of religion without the sanction and support of the government in some form was to them an untried experiment, and of very doubtful success. Their opportunism was the child of their fears for re- ligion and the Church.
But the public sentiment manifested in the re- sponse to the Remonstrance paved the way for the adoption of the Statute of Religious Freedom, inspired by Mason, written by Jefferson, and passed through the efforts of Madison. This bill had been reported in 1779 by the Committee ap- pointed in 1776 for the revisal of the laws, con- sisting of Thomas Jefferson, George Wythe, George Mason, Edmund Pendleton, and Thomas Ludwell Lee, all of them old Vestrymen of the Church. Mr. Mason resigned from the Commit- tee on the ground that he was no lawyer, and Mr. Lee died, before the report was made, but not un- til the plan of the work was settled and in a consid- erable degree carried into execution. This act, however, was not passed until 1785. The kernel of this famous bill, the "first act of religious free- dom that ever passed a legislative assembly on the face of the earth," is contained in the words,- "That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever,-but that all men shall be free to pro-
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fess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion," &c.
The real disestablishment of the Church had oc- curred a year before in the"Act for Incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church." This was passed in response to a petition of the Clergy, who, it would appear, desired to be themselves incor- porated. But the Assembly would have none of this, and formed the minister and Vestry of each parish respectively a body corporate and politic, empowered to hold, acquire, and dispose of prop- erty for the use of the Church, and to make rules and orders for managing its temporal affairs. All present vestries were dissolved, and the method of electing the Vestries every three years is pre- scribed. All former acts relating to the powers or duties of vestries or ministers, and all acts touch- ing upon doctrine, discipline, or forms of worship are repealed. The vestries were authorized to reg- ulate all the religious affairs of the Church in Con- vention, to consist of two deputies from each par- ish, of whom the minister, if there was a minister, should be one. This Act was repealed two years later, but not until under its sanction the first Con- vention of the Church met, and the Diocese of Virginia was organized, May 18th, 1785.
So far the legislation affecting the Church had been guided, and in large part induced, by Her own sons, nourished at her side. Of that which followed another story might be told. The repeal,
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in 1799, of all laws relating to "the late protestant episcopal church," (sic), the Act of 1802 confiscat- ing the glebes, solemnly saved and reserved for the use of the said Church by two previous Acts of the Assembly, and claiming the right, though for- bearing to exercise it, of confiscating the church buildings also, and the persistent refusal through many years to allow the Church to hold charitable funds or secure incorporation for her educational institutions; these show an animus which we re- joice to believe has almost disappeared, giving way to the sweeter claims of reason and charity.
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LATER HISTORY OF POHICK CHURCH
Upon the organization of the Diocese of Vir- ginia in the year 1785 no representative appears in the Convention from Truro Parish, nor does the name of the Parish appear on the Convention journals for more than half a century except once in a list of the parishes as divided into Presbyterial Districts. What occasional services, if any, were held in Pohick Church after the death of the Rev. Mr. O'Neill in 1813 we know not, until the si- lence is broken in 1838 by Bishop Meade in the report to the Convention from which extracts have already been given by Dr. Slaughter. To the same Convention the Rev. William P. C. John- son reports, as Rector of Pohick Church, Truro Parish,-"It has been nearly two years since the minister of this Parish first commenced regular services in a Church, which, for a number of years, has resounded the echoes of the beasts of the field, instead of the prayers and praises of rational crea- tures. Owing to the dilapidated condition of the Parish Church his services have hitherto been only occasional. An effort is now being made to re- store this Church to a comfortable condition, and the hope is entertained that ultimate good may
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result from religious services in this hitherto moral waste of the Lord's vineyard." In 1841 he makes his last report, and adds "The minister of Truro Parish respectfully reports that the ven- erable Church edifice in which he officiates has been rescued from further decay and dilapida- tion." He makes no mention of the number of Communicants, but during the four years of his ministry there he baptized four white and eighteen colored infants, and officiated at eight marriages and four burials. He rendered occasional services at old Aquia Church in Stafford County and in the old Court House at Dumfries in Prince William. He was also employed as a tutor for the children of the last Mrs. George Mason, of Gunston Hall.
After Mr. Johnson's retirement the Church was sometimes opened for Divine service by Students from the Theological Seminary, with perhaps oc- casional visits from the Professors. The Metho- dists also preached there from time to time. In 1861 the Rev. R. T. Brown, of Fairfax C. H. re- ported that he had "Also taken charge of Pohick Church, near Mount Vernon, with fair prospects of success." But the outbreak of war made his ministry there a short one.
When the war was over it was found that Pohick had fared comparatively well, for there was left of it the walls, the roof and the ceiling. Of the in- terior woodwork there also remained the original cornice, while the stone font was afterwards dis-
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covered in a neighboring farmyard where it had been used as a watering trough. Of its rehabili- tation and consecration Bishop Johns wrote a few months before his death :-
"October 3d. 1875. I consecrated Pohick Church. Morning service by the Rev. Dr. Pack- ard and the Rev. Dr. McIlhenny. Sermon by my- self. This venerable building, in the location and erection of which General Washington was so ac- tive, was for many years the Parish Church of the family at Mount Vernon. It was during the late war shamefully damaged by its military invaders, who left it to crumble under the wasting influences of the weather, and to be carried off at pleasure by any one who fancied its material for private use. So, after the war of the Revolution, disap- peared the church in which the "Father of his Country" was said to have been christened, and such seemed to be the doom of the church of his manhood, but its sad condition came to the knowl- edge of a generous Christian gentleman of New York, who enquired, then came and looked, and then never intermitted his efforts till the ruin was thoroughly repaired. A new chancel with all its appropriate furniture and a handsome communion service was provided, a font in front and a con- venient robing room on one side of the chancel and a good pipe organ on the other. The restora- tion was complete, and the large congregation now assembled were gladdened by the presence
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of the benefactor to whose sympathy and services they were so largely indebted, and who was now with them uniting in the consecration of the ven- erable building which he had been the honored agent in rescuing from ruin and preserving for their great benefit and the honour and worship of God. Until an ordained minister can be procured to officiate regularly for this congregation stated services will be rendered by students of the Semi- nary appointed for the purpose."
In September, 1881, the Rev. Samuel A. Wallis, newly ordained, took charge of Pohick, and from this moment the real revival of its life began. He found but ten Communicants. But his faithful work among the people of a widely scattered com- munity soon resulted in gathering a large and in- terested congregation, to whom he ministered for thirteen years. A rectory was secured and other parish property added, and the active interest of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association was en- listed in the church. Mr. Wallis resigned in 1894. Bishop Newton thus speaks of his ministry there: "The history of old Pohick Church for the past thirteen years, its resuscitation and progress, speaks with no uncertain sound in favor of a long and faithful pastorate. When Rev. S. A. Wallis entered upon the work as a Deacon it was one of the least promising fields in the Diocese. He left it, when elected a Professor in the Theological Seminary, with the church building in good con-
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dition, a comfortable rectory, and the number of Communicants increased tenfold. The Sunday School of nearly one hundred scholars presented a most cheering outlook for the future."
Mr. Wallis continued his oversight of the con- gregation until the Rev. Henry F. Kloman took charge in the summer of 1895. He remained two years, and was succeeded in October, 1897, by the Rev. Everard Meade, the present beloved Rector. Under him the work, which has long been in con- templation, of a real restoration of the interior of the Church to its original appearance and beauty, has progressed and is in large part completed. The chancel, pulpit and the principal pews are now re- produced as exactly as possible as they were when the Church was received by the Vestry from the hands of Col. George Mason in 1774. The pews in the rear of the building alone remain to be re- stored. In this work the Rector and Vestry have been generously aided by the Mount Vernon As- sociation, the Daughters of the American Revolu- tion, and other patriotic and antiquarian societies, as well as by individuals who have been interested in preserving the sacred memories which cluster around this sturdy old temple of God. The re- opening of the Church after its restoration took place on Advent Sunday, 1906; the sermon being preached by the Rev. Dr .. S. A. Wallis.
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