Washington lived in a Christian context. This compels us to ask, why was he so persistent in Christian worship, if he was a Deist who had denied the foundational truth of Christianity? Clearly, the Church was an important part of George Washington’s life—so much so, that he was active in the service of his church. The man who would lead his country honed his leadership skills in serving as a lay-leader in his church. Ultimately, we will next explore George Washington in his service as a vestryman and church warden in the historic Virginian Truro Parish.

FOURTEEN

George Washington

The Vestryman

“The regularity of Washington’s attendance at the meetings of the Vestry is deserving of special notice.

”

Philip Slaughter

¹

For years, Washington was a lay-leader (a vestryman, so named because of the vestments they wore) in the Church of England in the Truro Parish in northern Virginia, outside of the city we now call Washington, D.C. The significance of Truro Parish for our nation’s existence is immense. Dr. Philip Slaughter, historian of Truro Parish, explains,

No Parish in the Colony had a Vestry more distinguished in its personnel, or more fully qualified for their positions, than the Parish of Truro. . . Eleven of them sat at various times in the House of Burgesses. Two of them, the Fairfaxes, were members of “His Majesty’s Council for Virginia.” Another of her vestrymen was George Mason, one of the first among the founders of the State and the great political thinkers of his age; while still another was declared to be the “Greatest man of any age,” the imperial George Washington.²

The role of the vestryman in colonial Virginia was captured by Thomas Jefferson,

Usually the most discreet farmers, so distributed through their Parish that every part of it may be under the eye of some one of them. They are well acquainted with the details and economy of private life, and they find sufficient inducements to execute their charge well in their philanthropy, in the approbation of their neighbors, and the distinction which that gives them.³

The vestry book begins with a citation of the Act of the General Assembly that created the parish along with a record of the election of the members and the proceedings of their first meeting. This Act required that the sheriff of the county call the freeholders and housekeepers, to assemble to elect the “most able and discreet persons in the said Parish as shall make up the number of vestrymen in the said Parish twelve and no more.”⁴ Thus, the first vestry met in 1732, when George was about one year old. At that meeting, five vestrymen were elected, “having taken the oaths appointed by law, and subscribed to be conformable to the doctrine and disciple of the Church of England.” Truro Parish took its name from the parish in Cornwall, England, which became the Diocese of Truro.

There are those who have argued that Washington’s service in the vestry of the Anglican Church of Virginia really has little to do with his personal faith. For after all, it was a political position of prestige. And even Thomas Jefferson, hardly a strong role model for devout Christians, was elected as a vestryman.⁵ Author Paul Boller, Jr. is one such example. But there is a dramatic difference between vestryman Washington in the Truro Parish and vestryman Jefferson in St. Anne’s Parish that “passes through Charlottesville.”⁶ While Bishop Meade affirms that Jefferson was “elected to the vestry of St. Anne’s,” he adds, “though it does not appear that he ever acted.”⁷ To be merely elected a vestryman did not make one a “churchman.”

Paul Boller, for instance, writes, “it is not possible to deduce any exceptional religious zeal from the mere fact of membership—even Thomas Jefferson was a vestryman for a while.”⁸ He also added, “...it is impossible to read any special religious significance into his service.”⁹

But Washington’s long and faithful service stands in marked distinction from Jefferson’s mere election. Washington actually served with great fidelity. We do not want to read anything into this other than what the facts tell us, and the facts are that George Washington’s service as a vestryman is commensurate with the highest commitment to the Christianity proposed by the Anglican Church. George Washington’s service as a vestryman is summarized by Philip Slaughter,

The regularity of Washington’s attendance at the meetings of the Vestry is deserving of special notice. During the eleven years of his active service, from February, 1763, to February, 1774, thirty-one “Vestries” were held, at twenty-three of which he is recorded as being present. On the eight occasions when he was absent, as we learn from his Diary or other sources, once he was sick in bed, twice the House of Burgesses, of which he was a member, was in session, and three other times certainly, and on the two remaining occasions probably, he was out of the County.¹⁰

Washington’s commitment to service to the church was exemplary, even by modern standards, when we have faster and more convenient means of transportation.

What did it require to be a vestryman? If public surveyors were required to take oaths to serve,¹¹ it was even more logical that those entrusted with the church sanctioned by the state would take oaths as well. George’s father, Augustine, had assumed the office of vestryman on November 18, 1735, when George, his first-born son by his second marriage, was only three years old. The oaths required of a vestryman for both Augustine Washington and his son George were the same: “I, A B, do declare that I will be conformable to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, as by law established.” This meant that they declare their faith in the key Christian doctrines, including the divinity of Christ, Christ’s death for sinners, and his resurrection from the dead.

See middle section of the book for a full color and larger view of this map

Having been elected to the vestry of Truro Parish on October 25, 1762, some thirty years after his father, George took the same oath on February 15, 1763. The vestry book of Truro Parish has the following record: “Ordered, that George Washington, Esq. be chosen and appointed one of the vestrymen of this parish, in the room of William Peake, Gent. Deceased.”¹² The Records of the County Court of Fairfax has under the date of February 15th, 1763, “George Washington Esqr. took the oaths according to Law repeated and subscribed the Test and subscribed to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England in order to qualify him to act as a Vestryman of Truro Parish.”¹³ Speaking of the oaths taken by vestrymen, Slaughter writes, “they were oaths of allegiance and of abjuration of Popery and of the Pretender, etc., and were required of all Civil and Military officers by the laws of England and of Virginia. . . It seems to have required as many as six oaths and subscriptions properly to qualify a Vestryman in those days.”¹⁴

THE HISTORY OF TRURO PARISH’S VESTRY

The history of the vestry is significant to appreciate Washington’s role as a churchman. One of the initial duties the vestry had, when a new parish began, was to organize and build churches. So in 1733, the Reverend Lawrence De Butts was called to preach three times a month in various churches, one of those times being “at Occoquan Church,” which was the name for the “old Pohick Church.” His salary was to be “the sum of eight thousand pounds of tobacco, clear of the Warehouse charges and abatements.”¹⁵

Along with building churches and filling pulpits, the vestry had the duty to secure and to provide for the clergy of the established church. It was the practice for each Anglican church to have a farm. These were called glebes. Thus, one of the responsibilities of the vestry was to provide for these glebes. The Truro Parish glebe began in 1734.¹⁶ Because there were insufficient clergy for the pulpits, the vestry also hired readers. As their name implies, they were to read published Anglican sermons at services and read prayers from the Book of Common Prayer.¹⁷ Some of the sermons that would have been read were the Anglican homilies, these are listed in the Thirty-Nine Articles, the official confession of faith of the Anglican Church. The need for a resident clergyman was immediately apparent, and in 1734 the vestry began a search for a pastor.¹⁸

Seventeen-thirty-five was the first year that a Washington family member served on the Truro Parish. On November 18th, the record states, “Augustine Washington gent. being this day sworn one of the members of this Vestry, took his place therein accordingly.”¹⁹ The early history of Augustine Washington’s vestry shows that the vestrymen in Virginia were serious in their work, as they sought to honor the Anglican heritage and adapt it to the colonial context.

VARIOUS DUTIES OF THE VESTRY

Along with the many duties of the vestry in regard to church building and caring for the clergy, there were also the responsibilities to care for the poor, to protect the historic boundaries of lands, to collect tithables or church taxes, and to prevent and discipline moral violations.

Caring for the poor was especially the duty of the one who occupied the office of Church Warden. His duties included “binding orphan and other indigent children as Apprentices” and imparting “...the duties and morals of those apprenticed, their being taught to read English and the ‘Art and mystery’ of shoemaking, or of a Carpenter...”²⁰

An ancient vestry duty continued in Virginia was the custom of renewing landmarks. This was termed “processioning.” Every four years, landowners in good standing were appointed by the vestry to “perambultate” the parish, going around the plantations and assuring the boundaries were still well marked.²¹

Since tobacco was the primary means of exchange for much of colonial Virginia, church funds were likewise paid by the crop. In order to raise the tobacco to pay for the glebe and its mansion house, as well as its resident rector, not to mention the general care and building of the churches themselves, a great deal of tobacco had to be collected. Records not only had to be kept, but the law complicated the collections by further specifying which persons were “tithables” or countable in a collection of the tithe on tobacco for the church’s many needs.

All male persons of the age of sixteen years or upwards, and also negro, mulatto and Indian women of like age, (“except tributary Indians to this government,”) were “tithable” or chargeable for county and parish levies. But the Court or vestry, “for reason of charity,” could excuse indigent persons from payment, and this was frequently done. In 1733 there were 676 tithables in Truro. Ten years later there were 1,372. This indicates the growth of the population. The Parish Levy varied widely year by year, the average being about 34 pounds of tobacco per poll.²²

In view of these extensive financial and legal vestry duties, it is understandable why the records also show payments to a vestry clerk to keep the records, to collectors to secure the tithes, and to a church sexton to maintain the property and to bury the dead.

GEORGE WASHINGTON AS VESTRYMAN

Nearly twenty years would pass after Augustine’s death until George, at the age of thirty, would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a vestryman himself in 1762. During this time, the life of the parish quietly continued with some important intervening events.

In 1742, a new county was created out of Prince William County and was named Fairfax County. The boundary line of Truro Parish and the new county coincided.²³ In 1748, an Act of Assembly established in the new county a town named Alexandria. This city was named for the three Alexander brothers, John, Robert, and Gerard, who had emigrated from Scotland and had there established tobacco warehouses, which had been known before its new name as Hunting Creek Warehouse or Belle-Haven. As early as June 4, 1753, the Reverend Charles Green had been preaching there every third Sunday.²⁴

Given the presence of these Scottish businessmen, Alexandria also became a center for Presbyterian settlers, and a strong Presbyterian church community was established. Coming from these Presbyterian settlers was another of George Washington’s closest life-long friends, Dr. James Craik. Dr. Craik was Washington’s close friend, travel partner, army surgeon general, and personal physician. He was present when Washington died.

What responsibilities were church wardens charged with? In part, they were the protectors of public morals. As Reverend Slaughter states in the The History of Truro Parish,

Among the duties of the Church Wardens was that of presenting to the Court of the county persons guilty of gambling, drunkenness, profanity, Sabbath breaking, failing to attend church, disturbing public worship, and certain other offences against decency and morality. The fines imposed in these cases went to them for the use of the Parish, and sometimes mentioned in the annual statement, though usually they would be included in the Wardens account which are not given in detail. That the Church Wardens of Truro, Cameron and Fairfax Parishes did not fail in their duty of presenting offenders is abundantly shown in records of the county Court. Presentments were usually made through the Grand Jury, the offender’s Parish being designated, but sometimes the Church Wardens themselves are named as prosecutors.²⁵

Washington was Church Warden in 1764, a year that saw some large changes in the Parish. One of his duties was to auction tobacco at the court house for the vestry, which is described in the vestry minutes,

Ordered that 31,549 lb. of tobo. In the hands of the Church Wardens for the year 1764, to wit, George Washington and George Wm. Fairfax Esqrs. be sold to the highest bidder, before the Court House door of this County on the first day of June Court next between the hours of 12 and 4, and that publick notice be given of the sale.²⁶

One of the issues that occurred at this time was another division of Truro Parish, creating a new Fairfax Parish and the older continuing Truro Parish. Each Parish was to elect its vestry. But the result of the division was not well received by the continuing Truro Parish. Ultimately, the conflict boiled down to an equitable distribution of “tithables.” The issue had to be resolved by the House of Burgesses.

Washington was caught in the middle of the conflict. Again Reverend Slaughter notes:

It is evident that Washington himself, and his immense estate at Mount Vernon, was the principal bone of contention between the mother and daughter Parishes. The lines proposed ran, the one on the south, the other on the north, of the estate. The one finally adopted divided it leaving far the larger part, however with the mansion house, in Truro. That he would take an active interest in the settlement of the question was inevitable, and doubtless his direct agency is to be seen in the compromise petition which found favor with the House of Burgesses and was the basis of their legislation. The Act which was passed may well have been drawn by his own pen. In contrast with the previous Act it is unusually specific in its details, and would seem to indicate the hand of the Surveyor in its clearly described lines, and of the Church Warden in its accurate enumeration of the property and assets of the Parish.²⁷

Another reference revealing Washington’s interest in this matter is a manuscript where he lists the results of both the vestry elections in March and the elections in July. It was confusion over seeing Washington’s name listed as elected in both that created the misunderstanding that he had been elected to and served in two vestries. Those historians today that deny Washington was a Christian ignore his deep commitment to serving the church. His keen interest in the church is seen by the fact that he was elected to serve in two separate parishes. When the parish he served in was ended and another started, he was immediately willing to serve in the new and was elected a second time.

Slaughter writes:

This paper shows that at the first election, in March, 1765, Col. Washington was elected a Vestryman of the first Fairfax Parish, he being, for the moment, a resident therein. The life of this Parish was exactly four months, and of this Vestry-elect two months and three days, even if its members never qualified or met for organization, of which there is no evidence. In July, Mount Vernon having, in the meantime, been restored to Truro, Col. Washington was again elected a Vestryman of Truro Parish, and was not eligible in any other.²⁸

The result of the division was far more equitable since the result was 1,013 tithable in Fairfax Parish and 962 in Truro. But the good news of a successful division of the Parish was soon dampened when the Reverend Charles Green died.