Worship as you please, or not at all: From its inception, Prince William County was a leader in the effort to bring religious freedom to America
Aquia Church, in Stafford County, was built in 1757 and is one of the oldest churches in what was then Prince William County.
When Europeans first settled in the area that became Prince William County and for many years thereafter, there was only one church allowed: the Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church.
Three Anglican Churches were in or near today’s Prince William County: Pohick Church in Lorton, which was then part of Prince William, Quantico Church and Aquia Church. All three were established in 1667, when today’s Prince William and Fairfax counties were part of Stafford County. Two of the three still exist: Pohick Church’s current building was constructed in 1774, and Aquia Church, which was reconstructed in 1757 after a fire damaged the 1751 building. (There were previous structures at both locations.) George Washington and George Mason were members of Pohick Church.
Anglican Church operations
Virginia was divided into church parishes (similar to counties) that not only served religious purposes but also provided governmental oversight. The Anglican Church was responsible for caring for the poor, overseeing the conduct of parishioners, setting and overseeing land boundaries, setting the tax rate for church support, and establishing church-operated plantations, known as “glebes.” Church attendance was mandatory and was enforced with fines, and everyone had to pay taxes to support the church.
The church was even responsible for building roads, in particular those leading to parish churches, county courts, the colonial capital and those connecting counties. All males (including slaves) were required to take part in building these roads. Each individual was required to provide six days of labor each year with a system of fines to ensure compliance. These roads were essentially just cleared equestrian and pedestrian paths, since nearby waterways provided transportation for commercial purposes.
One of the first and most historic of these early roads was the “Potomac Path,” which U.S. 1 generally parallels today. The route of the Potomac Path passed very closely to the Pohick and Aquia Anglican churches. It also provided access to an English fort built on Neabsco Creek in 1679 that was one of the earliest forts constructed in Virginia, and to Quantico Church.
Change comes to the Anglican church
In the mid 1500s, the Church of England split from the Catholic Church and the pope, and King Henry VIII became head of the Anglican Church. There were further reforms by other English monarchs through the 1600s, resulting in somewhat of a middle position between Protestantism and Catholicism in many respects. The Anglican Church in Virginia generally was reformed along with the English version, but while the English church retained direct royal control, things evolved differently in Virginia.
In Virginia, oversight of the church initially came from the Bishop of London, but gradually more local control became the norm. This was partially due to how hard it was for the monarchy to get clergy from England to come to America. Early settlers who came to Virginia had to deal with conditions that included long ocean journeys, primitive living conditions and Indian attacks. They were willing to do this because many were looking to improve their financial condition in the new world. Church leaders didn’t need the same financial incentives, so it was harder to entice them to make the journey to America, and thus the church hierarchy became more localized. This shortage of leadership also resulted in the church in Virginia being less able to perform some of its civic responsibilities, which were slowly taken over by civil courts and governing bodies.
The Baptists assert themselves
Even so, there were those who wanted complete autonomy from the Anglican Church and its practices, and the Baptists were prominent here. Pre-revolution, early Baptist churches were considered outlaw sects, and their members were persecuted. Baptist reverends were even arrested for preaching without permission.
One of the first Baptist churches in Virginia, and the first in Prince William County, was variously known as the Occoquan Church, Bacon Race Church or Oak Grove Church. This church stood near the intersection of Davis Ford and Bacon Race roads. The last Bacon Race Church building collapsed on Christmas eve in 1987, but the site remains as it was, including the historic cemetery.
Colonial-era Baptists took advantage of sentiments in favor of political freedom and petitioned the government for complete separation of church and state and freedom to worship as they pleased. The Occoquan Baptist Church was a leader in this effort and sent their petition to the Committee of Religion, Convention of Virginia, on May 11, 1776. The petition had three main conditions: to be able to worship as one pleases without interruption; to have one’s own ministers and no other; and that one may be married, buried, etc., without paying the Parsons of any other denominations.
The passing in Virginia of Thomas Jefferson’s “Establishing Religious Freedom” bill of 1785, placing Virginia in the forefront of religious freedom, was in part a result of the lobbying of the Occoquan Baptist church.
A Huguenot haven
Another early chapter in the quest for religious freedom in early America was also an example of land speculation and development so familiar to today’s county residents. King James wanted to expand settlement into the western areas of Prince William County, so he formed a partnership with George Foote, Nicholas Hayward, George Brent and Robert Bristow to create a haven for Huguenots in a 30,000-acre tract they named Brent Town in the Brentsville area.
The Brent family was Catholic and came to Virginia in the late 1640s, establishing the first Catholic settlement in Virginia. Huguenots were French Protestants who broke away from the Catholic church and were persecuted in France and later England. Brent Town was a real estate venture designed to lure Huguenots to settle there and be protected from persecution.
The concept failed, as few Huguenots actually came.
A later effort to make Brent Town a Catholic refuge also failed, but the effort adds to Prince William County’s noteworthy record of pioneering religious freedom in America. Prince William is now incredibly religiously diverse, with local religious communities practicing every Christian denomination as well as Islam, Judaism, Sikhism and Buddhism, to name a few. And just as importantly, Prince William, and America, became a place where we not only have freedom to choose a religion to follow, we’re also free to not be part of any religion and to not be penalized or persecuted for it.