Old Pohick Church, as the parish church is called, stands on the old stage road, five miles from Mount Vernon, and the same distance from Gunston Hall, the mansion of Col. George Mason-known in history as "George Mason of '76," the author of the Bill of Rights and also of the Constitution of Virginia.

This "stately edifice" (as it has been called by some patriotic antiquarians who invested it with the grandeur of the Father of his Country as soon as they saw his illustrious name in gilt letters on one of the pew doors), was built in the most solid fashion, of imported brick, and up to 1861 had withstood decay and neglect. It had been left for years without any properly constituted guardian, and except on chance occasions its solemn echoes were not awakened by the voice of the preacher or the sound of anthems. Up to that time it had been preserved entire; but at the very commencement of hostilities it became a picket post, alternately held by the cavalry outposts of the opposing armies, and in 1865 but little of the interior remained; the capacious chancel on one side, and the high, elaborately carved pulpit on the other, had disappeared as completely as the wigs and queues of the Colonial gentry whose names were inscribed on the doors of the highbacked pews. The improvised cicerone, in the person of a rustic vagrant, told the writer that the door of General Washington's pew had served to stop the chink of a cabin,-the same ignoble end to which the dust of Cæsar may have been destined. The stone pavement of the aisles, dinted by the hoofs of the light Virginia thorough-bred and the heavy Pennsylvania charger, was all that remained of the interior; and but for the pious care of a wealthy gentleman of New York, who has partially restored the building, we might find to-day only the bare ruin of this ancient Colonial relic.

The first Pohick Church, built sometime during the governorship of Spotswood, stood some distance south of the present one, and on the bank of a creek which still retains its Indian name of Pohick. This is the extreme point reached by Captain John Smith in 1608 in his expedition in canoes, and the grave of one of his party, Lieut. Wm. Herris, a few miles below, marks the spot where that "Goode Stoute Soldiere" lost his life in a skirmish with "those tall and proper sal

The church was completed in 1773, and from a deed conveying a pew to Parson Massey we find that the Vestry at that date was composed as follows:

Geo. Washington, Geo. Mason, Daniel McCarty, Alexander Henderson, Thos. Ellzy, Thos. Withers Coffer, Martin Cockburn, Wm. Payne, Jr., Jno. Barry, Jno. Gunnell.

At that time, as we see from the originals of some of the accounts that have been preserved, the rector's salary was £650, independent of that of the clerk. And the assemblage at Pohick on a Sunday morning was so suggestive of wealth and prosperity that the traditional description of it might well have drawn a sigh from the breast of that representative individual, known by his familiar initials of F. F. V., when fifty years later he heard his grandsire tell the story, and tell also how the Virginia Leaf in those days brought eighty cents per pound in the markets of Liverpool and Bordeaux.

On this spot, where the hungry riders of Pleasonton and Stewart looked around in vain for "grub" and forage, where the last of the F. F. V.'s had stood and bewailed his desolate fields and fallen fortunes, the Mount Vernon coach, driving four, with liveried coachman and footman, and with the ancient arms of de Hertburn emblazoned on the panel, had drawn up amidst a crowd of powdered beaux, who always came to church early and were ever ready to vie with each other for the honor of handing Mrs. Washington from her coach. This carriage, which Barrington, or some other distinguished Irishman, would have called "a specimen of Gothic architecture on wheels," was built to order in London, and for a long period served as a model after which those old Colonial swells had their equipages made. The running gear and lower section of the body were cream color, with gilt moldings; the "top hamper" mahogany, with green Venetian blinds, and

the interior finished in black leather; two great "head lights" on the box served at night to let the curious traveler know that "a person of quality" was on the road, and aided West Ford to keep his bearings on the dangerous highways not yet smoothed by the magic hand of McAdam. Our great prototype republican also had his coatof-arms on the door panel, fully emblazoned and "tricked." As the crest is emblazoned on a ducal coronet, we may perhaps accept the story that these are the armorial bearings of William de Hertburn, a Norman baron, who was lord of the manor of Washington in the 13th century. On the four side panels were pictures representing the seasons. This coach came into the possession of Bishop Meade of Virginia, who, with one eye to business and the other to charity, had it cut up and sold in pieces at a church fair.

The Fairfaxes, Masons, Lewises, and others of the county drove similar turnouts whenever they "went abroad,"-a phrase which signified any place beyond the limits of their own domain.

Not the least important feature of the congregation of Pohick was the crowd of negro lackeys in liveries and great periwigs: much more consequential in their bearing than any of their masters.

In this iconoclastic age we may venture to say, without being profane, that the traditions of this neighborhood do not substantiate those authorities who dressed the character of The Great Republican for an audience much more severe than the one before which he actually performed. As we shall see by the characters of some of the rectors of Truro, the morals and manners of the time were far from being "in accord" with the habits and sentiments of an ascetic.

The dress in which Colonel Washington generally appeared at church was a laced hat, stone-colored coat with gilt buttons, blue surtout, buff knee-breeches, boots and gilt spurs. Being held the best horseman and boldest fox-hunter in Virginia, it was natural that he followed the fashion prevalent among the young gallants and came to church on horseback. He used a Pelham bit, and generally rode with holsters at his saddle-peak. The portrait by Peale, which is considered by his relatives the most correct one, represents him at the age of forty in the uniform of Colonel of the Twentysecond Virginia Militia. There is no trace of resemblance to the grand-motherly portrait by Stuart, even allowing for the differ

ence of age. The former agrees in personal appearance with the character given him by neighborhood tradition,-a bold, dashing gallant, even after his marriage; rather foppish in dress, and safe, according as occasion offered, to win a lady's smile, or the fox's brush.

The business administration of this parish, though on the same plan, was perhaps more thorough than that of any of the other Colonial parishes. The two wardens, as executive officers of the vestry, kept a corps of weavers, cobblers, blacksmiths, and other mechanics, at work for the parish, the hands being either hired, apprenticed, or furnished by the county authorities from the paupers and persons condemned to hard labor for petty offenses. The assessments and voluntary contributions of the congregation were paid in tobacco, but all disbursements were in money. The tobacco on hand was sold according to special orders of the vestry. One of these orders, dated Colchester, August 22d, 1769, directs the sale of fifteen hogsheads at Pohick Warehouse; the designations are in the same method used in Virginia at the present day. In one of the vestry accounts of the same year we find the following items:

As the last ditto is repeated seven times in the same account, we might suppose that there was a corps of gay Lotharios in Truro Parish.

In Parson Massey's letter of resignation, two years after the commencement of hostilities, he states that his salary had been cut down to £150, and refers to the decline in the price of tobacco. We find here the secret of that decline in the agricultural wealth of the Old Dominion, about which her politicians have talked so much, and which has been so often attributed to the fostering of New England interests, to the prejudice of the Middle and Southern States. The price-current, published by Fenwick, Mason & Co., of Bordeaux, and another by Crosbies & Trafford of Liverpool,-two houses to which the planters on the Potomac shipped tobacco,-quote Virginia Leaf at thirty and sixty pence. This price held in France during the French Revolution; but after the close of our Revolution, with that exception, the price steadily declined. The

heirs of the Colonial planters inherited the wealth of their fathers without their enterprise and industry, and while the price of the product declined, the lands, under a baneful system of labor and cultivation, were gradually being worn out.

While the morals of the Colonial society were much looser than ours, there was nevertheless a certain pretention and ceremony of religion maintained in all the relations of private life, and even carried into business transactions. In every household prayers were read morning and evening with a stiff and solemn formality, the negro servants standing in line at the back of the room; and the guest who absented himself would have been deemed a blackguard, although he would have been forgiven for being drunk in the presence of the ladies with whom he played cards for money.

Here is a bill of lading for four hogsheads of tobacco, shipped November 18, 1763, from the next plantation to Mount Vernon: "Shipp'd, by the Grace of God, in good Order, and well condition'd, by in and upon the good Ship call'd the Virginia, whereof is Master under God, for this present voyage, Henry McCabe, and now riding at anchor in the River Potomac, and by God's Grace bound for Liverpool, &c.

* *

*

"And so God send the good Ship to her desir'd port in safety. Amen."

In Davis's "Four Years and a Half in America," a book published in 1803, and dedicated to Mr. Jefferson, we find the following description of the town of Colchester, and of the congregation at Pohick:

"On the side of the bridge stands a tavern where every luxury that money can purchase may be had at first summons, where the choicest viands cover the table, and where ice cools the Madeira which has been thrice across the ocean. Having slept one night at this tavern, I rose with the sun and journeyed to the mills, catching refreshment from a light air that stirred the leaves of the trees. About eight miles from Occoquan Mills is a house of worship called Pohick Church, a name it claims from a creek which flows near its walls. Thither I rode on Sunday, and joined the congregation of Parson Weems, a minister of the Episcopal Church, who was cheerful in his mien that he might win men to religion. A Virginian churchyard on a Sunday resembles rather a racecourse than a sepulchral ground. The ladies come to it in carriages, and the men, after dismounting from their horses, make them fast to the trees. But the steeples to the

Virginian churches are designed, not for utility, but ornament, for the bell is always suspended to a tree a few yards from the church. It is observable that the gate is ever carefully locked by the sexton, who retires last. Wonder and ignorance are ever reciprocal. I was astounded on entering the church-yard at Pohick to hear

'Steed threaten steed with high and boastful neigh.' Nor was I less stunned by the rattling of carriage-wheels, the cracking of whips, and the vociferations of the gentlemen to the negroes who accompanied them. But the discourse of Mr. Weems calmed every perturbation, for he preached the great doctrines of salvation as one who had felt their power."

The first rector of Truro, of whom we have any account, was the Rev. Chas. Green, who filled the rectorship for twenty-three years. It appears from some of General Washington's letters that he was an intimate at Mount Vernon, but tradition gives him the character of such a person as we find in the old English novels, and of the pattern of the two which Thackeray presents to us in "The Virginians." He must have been equally versed in theology and cards, and as ready for the race-course as for the pulpit. If our modern ideas of clerical dignity are shocked by contemplating such a character, we must blame the morals and manners of the time, and not so much the individual. The Great Story-teller palliates the "slack twisted" morals of the Colonial society by throwing it into favorable comparison with the corresponding society in the mother country.

Parson Green died in 1763, and was succeeded by the Rev. Lee Massey. This individual is described as a man of the highest education, of exalted character, and in person eminently handsome. Being a very different sort of person from the average parson of the time, it is likely that he kept a tighter rein on the flock, at least if we may judge from one of his letters to the vestry, in which, after berating that convocation of worthies for exceeding their authority in some business concerns of the parish, he concludes: "And now, gentlemen, as for the knowing ones among you, and I admit that there are such, I have to say 'humanum est errare,' and for the rest, 'ne sutor supra crepidam.'

Massey's sermons, though evincing talent and learning, were not of a kind to suit the straight-laced ideas of the next century, and

some divines have pronounced them unsound in doctrine. He was married twice, and the first wife, who had been a noted shrew, but became a model wife, gave point to her husband's famous saying, which has been quoted much oftener than followed, viz.: "That a wife should always be taken down in her wedding slippers."

His letter of resignation, the original of which is before the writer, shows that in his clerical robes he had not forgotten the stiff forms of his first profession, which was the law, and which he gave up at the instance

of Col. Washington, who had been his intimate from childhood:

"In the name of God, Amen: I, Lee Massey, Rector and Incumbent of the Parish Church of Truro, in the County of Fairfax and Commonwealth of Virginia, for certain causes and considerations me hereunto especially moving to be exonerated from the Care and Burden of the Rectory and Parsonage of the said Parish, do by these presents expressly and absolutely renounce and resign into the hands of the present Vestry of the said Parish my Rectory and Parsonage aforesaid, together with all and singular its Rights, Members and Appurtenances, and all my Right and Title thereto and Possession thereof, and do leave the same vacant to all intents and purposes whatsoever.

VOL. XI.-41.

been engrafted "a posteriori" by means of the birch-that enchanter's wand which could evoke with a dozen mystic strokes more Latin and Greek than the average boy of this degenerate age ever dreams of.

Parson Kemp's popularity, his jovial temper and his bright wit, became constant sources of temptation, and finally led to his disgrace. Mr. Richard C., a wealthy gentleman of the county, had acquired the reputation of an accomplished hypocrite, owing to his extra airs of piety in a community where such deportment was not by any means necessary to maintain the character of a respectable member of the English Church.

In private he was known to be fond of good cheer, and to devote himself particu

larly to that matchless wine, then called "Corn Madeira," because it was gotten in exchange for corn, but more properly denominated "Tinto.". He was even accused of that species of gallantry technically called "flirting with a wench." He had long been known among his equals as St. Richard, and among the vulgar by the less euphonious, but not less expressive, sobriquet of Pious Dick. Now Parson Kemp took occasion on a certain Sunday to preach at St. Richard in such a scathing denunciation of all hypocrites and Pharisees, that there was no mistaking his aim, and he was universally extolled for "bringing him to the condign." St. Richard's own nephew, the most rollicking blade in the county, made a rhyme of thirty stanzas, celebrating certain surreptitious adventures of his pious uncle, and it was sung everywhere to the "Cruiskin Lawn." St. Richard stood all this with the air of a martyr; he was always seen in his pew on Sundays, and his responses could be heard above the whole congregation; but under this sanctimonious aspect he hid the fell purpose of a direful revenge.

was

It was in midsummer, when one Saturday evening Parson Kemp came riding by the high gate-way of Newington, the mansion of St. Richard, and whom should he see walking leisurely along the avenue but the proprietor himself. The good-hearted parson had long repented his severity, and only longed for an opportunity to repair the injury he had done; so he dismounted, and, offering his hand to his parishioner, made the most contrite apology. Never recantation more dearly bought. A half hour later the two sat on the long portico overlooking the beautiful valley of the Accotink, on which the full moon shed all her splendor, while the breeze, which at the confluence of the creek with the Potomac always blows with the turn of the tide, wafted the odor of the hawthorn, and of that fragrant herb with which the Virginian from immemorial time has delighted to flavor his cup of welcome. The host made a julep for his guest with brandy said to have been smuggled by the famous Blackbeard, who, whatever may have been his terrible repute in other waters, in the Potomac has left in legendary story only the name of a beneficent trader in contraband goods and a secreter of treasure.* But the

Captain Kidd, the pirate, was known by this

name in those waters.

heart of the piratical purveyor of that liquor never harbored deeper treachery than did St. Richard's at the moment he pledged the parson to a renewal of their friendly relations. How late into the night their sitting continued is not told, but the parson related how the tempter entered his chamber the next morning, bearing in his hand a gigantic julep in a silver tankard. The parson knew the danger of these multitudinal potations, and stoutly protested; but the wily St. Richard, holding the tempting goblet under his nose with one hand, put the other round the parson's neck, and embraced him with as much tenderness as the fashion of the time allowed; and, what with that caressing voice for which he was noted, and the insidious odor of the mint, the parson's virtue gave way, even with his refusal on his lips, just as virtue of another kind is said to do at times. The cup which Mephisto drinks to the sound of diabolical music is not more potent for evil than that which the parson had imbibed. He nodded in a strange way that day while the service was read; but when he attempted to climb the spiral stair of the pulpit, in the quaint language of that time, "he tripped up his heels" and fell floundering to the floor, where the seeming generous and forgiving St. Richard was the foremost to pick him up. Though Parson Kemp suffered disgrace, it may be told to the honor of his former flock, that they accorded him ever afterward a warmer welcome than to his betrayer. He became a school-master, and, by a more lenient administration of the birch than had ever been known, won the hearts of the rising generation. Whenever he told the catastrophe of his life he dwelt sorrowfully on that treacherous embrace, "whereby," quoth the poor parson, "he did, Judas-like, betray me with a kiss."

Bishop Meade, in his book on the old churches of Virginia, tells the story of one of the Colonial rectors, who, however, belonged properly in Maryland, that, being accused of Toryism, he deemed it incumbent on him to vindicate his reputation on the so-called field of honor. The fact is referred to also in a letter from one of the vestrymen of Truro to Bryan Fairfax, afterward Rector of Christ Church in Alexandria. The spot where the "fighting parson" distinguished himself is still pointed out on the Dipple Farm, about eighteen miles below Pohick Church.

This individual's descendants have main