Washington and Pohick Church 6 Jan 1760
Going to Church was a 7 mile ride on a horse driven open carriage. Their chariot had not been returned. The chariot had been borrowed by George William Fairfax. He used it to bring his wife home. His wife was Sarah (Sally) Carey, greatly adored by George Washington. She had come to help Martha suffering from measles, so George William Fairfax and her borrowed the chariot to go back home. The chariot was nice because it enclosed its occupants from the weather. Pohick Church was 7 miles away from Mt Vernon. The Washingtons did not go to church that day of 6 Jan 1760. Martha Washington was still recovering from Measles too. That date was the Washington's one year anniversary of Marriage. It is also known as 3 Kings Day or the Epiphany, the 12th Day of Christmas. That is the day celebrating The Three Wise Men visiting baby Jesus. Lately January 6 has a different meaning for Americans.
This church, Pohick Church was not the church that removed George Washington's plaque from his family box pew in 2017. That was Christ Church in Alexandria.
Pohick Church is full of stories. One story was a sex scandal.
Dr. Charles Green was the first rector of Pohick Church; he was successfully sponsored by Augustine Washington, father of George, who was elected to the church vestry in 1735.[6] Green was confirmed to the post in 1736 and traveled to London for ordination, returning to take up his duties the following year.[4]
During his tenure as rector Green was involved in a major scandal when he was accused by Lawrence Washington of sexual misconduct with his wife Anne [Fairfax Washington.[11]
Washington demanded Green's ouster from his post at the church; Green refused, and brought countersuit against Washington for slander, whereupon the latter demanded an ecclesiastical trial.
This took place in the chapel of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg beginning on November 6, 1745; before a verdict was reached, however, Governor William Gooch stepped in and ordered Green to drop the suit, in exchange for which he would not be removed from his post.[12] In the end, the rector remained at Pohick for the next twenty years as a respected clergyman; at his death in 1765 George Washington served as his executor.
"Peek Into History Reveals Va. Scandal". tribunedigital-dailypress. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
[Lawrence] Washington was married in July 1743 to Anne Fairfax (1728–1761), the eldest daughter of English-born Colonel William Fairfax of neighboring Belvoir, and his late wife Sarah (née Walker), born to a prominent family in the Bahamas, where [the father, William] Fairfax had been working when they married. The marriage of the 15-year-old Anne to [Lawrence Washington] , the newly returned 25-year-old army veteran [from the battle of Cartagena Colummbia South America 1741 ] appears to have been prompted by Anne's disclosure to her parents that the family's minister, the Reverend Charles Green of Truro Parish, had taken opportunities with her.[13]
About the time of his marriage he began the rebuilding of a house on the site of his father's earlier residence on Little Hunting Creek, naming it Mount Vernon in honor of his wartime commander.[14]
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Sunday Jany. 6th. The Chariot not returng. time enought from Colo. Fairfax’s we were prevented from Church.
Mrs. Washington was a good deal better today, but the Oyster Man still continuing his Disorderly behaviour at my Landing I was obligd in the most preemptory manner to order him and his Compy. away which he did not Incline to obey till next morning.
More about Pohick church
Founders Online Footnote about the church
In colonial Virginia the established church—paid for by an annual levy on all tithables—was the Anglican Church of England.
By 1760 there were a number of Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and German Pietists in Virginia; but GW, like the majority of Virginians, still adhered to the established church. Each Anglican parish was administered by a 12–man vestry elected by the voters upon the creation of the new parish by the Virginia Assembly.
Subsequent vacancies were filled by the vestry itself, which had broad civil and religious duties within the parish boundaries and enjoyed great power in the choice of rector.
The parish boundaries did not always follow county lines; while populous counties were served by two or even three parishes, more thinly settled counties often had but one. Mount Vernon was in Truro Parish, which in 1760 served all but the upper edge of Fairfax County.
In the 1760s “Church” for GW was the old wooden Pohick Church, built sometime before 1724 in Mason’s Neck, two miles up the road from Colchester toward Alexandria and about a seven-mile ride from Mount Vernon.
Originally called Occoquan Church, it became the main church for Truro Parish when that parish was formed in 1732 and was renamed Pohick Church the following year (see HARRISON [1], 285–86; SLAUGHTER [1], 5; FREEMAN, 1:136–37).
Source:
Pohick Church has not removed George Washington's plaque from his family box pew, nor those of Vestrymen George Mason or George William Fairfax. I believe he is confusing Pohick, George Washington's original church, with Christ Church in Alexandria, which he attended later after his Presidency. Christ Church has removed the plaques for both George Washington and Robert E. Lee. But George Washington is still greatly celebrated at Pohick. Informative free tours are offered on Saturdays from 1-3, and after services on Sundays. This beautiful colonial church has a fascinating history from colonial times through the Civil War to today.
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Compiled in Dec 2023 by Jim Moyer, updated 1/14/2024
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