Legends of Loudoun: An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern Neck — John Shaqi
Legends of Loudoun: An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern NeckWilliams, Harrison
History
Legends of Loudoun: An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern Neck
Williams, Harrison
Historic buildings -- Virginia -- Loudoun County; Loudoun County (Va.) -- History
Hamilton Parish was coextensive with Prince William County when the
latter was created in 1731. By a legislative act of May, 1732, that part
of Prince William lying above "the river Ockoquan, and the Bull Run (a
branch thereof) and a course thence to the Indian thoroughfare of the
Blue Ridge of Mountains" (Ashby's Gap) was set off as Truro Parish and a
Parish organization promptly followed. The new Parish was named for
Truro in Cornwall, a great mining district, for mining was expected to
be an important industry there. The first Vestry meeting was held on the
7th November, 1732; at a meeting held on the 16th April, 1733, an
agreement was made with the Rev. Lawrence De Butts to preach at the
Parish Church and "at the Chappell above Goose Creek" for 8,000 pounds
of tobacco, clear of the warehouse charges and abatements. The chapel
was then either contemplated or preliminary work on its construction may
have been begun; it was not finished until 1736. But during that
interval it is obvious, from the Vestry records, that occasional
services were held there--perhaps at first in the open air or at the
nearby house of Aubrey and thereafter in the unfinished chapel. At a
Vestry meeting held on the 12th October, 1733, Joseph Johnson was chosen
"Reader to the new Church and the Chappell above Goose Creek.... In the
Parish Levy for this year provision is made for 2,500 pounds of tobacco
to Captain Francis Aubrey toward building the Chapel above Goose Creek,
and the next year the same amount and in 1735, 4,000 pounds for
finishing said chapel."[20] Thus the construction of the chapel cost
the Parish 9,000 pounds of tobacco which about this time seems to have
been valued at eleven shillings per 100 pounds,[21] making the money
cost of the chapel about £49" 10s in Virginia currency or much less in
the more stable money of England. Undoubtedly it was built of logs from
the trees in its immediate vicinity and we may assume that it was very
small.
[20] _History of Truro Parish_, by Rev. Philip Slaughter, D.D., Edited
by Rev. Edward L. Goodwin, p. 7.
[21] Idem, 16.
At a Vestry meeting held on the 18th November, 1735, a payment of 1,000
pounds of tobacco was ordered made to Samuel Hull, Clerk of the Chapel
above Goose Creek. In a meeting nearly a year later, on the 11th
October, 1736, the Vestry ordered "that the Reverend Mr. John Holmes
Minister of this Parish preach six times in each year at the Chappell
above Goose Creek; and it is also ordered, that the Sundays he preached
at the said Chappell the sermon shall be taken from the new Church;" but
Mr. Holmes' ministry seems to have been somewhat irregular for at the
bottom of the page is found this note signed by the Rev. Charles Green
"the first regular Rector of Truro Parish":
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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