While Washington’s diaries are not a perfect source of his activities, they do give us insight into his Sunday worship practices. He grew up in a church-attending family. He went to church with his mother as a young boy, and years later, he went to church with her in Fredericksburg. His fame brought so many to see him at church that, when the over-full balcony let out a loud crack, according to Washington’s diary, the congregation rapidly exited, disrupting the worship service.10
Washington was familiar with the special worship of the Anglican Church called “Gunpowder”—-the service that commemorates the providential deliverance of the crown from Guy Fawkes November 5th plot to blow up Parliament.11 He also regularly attended worship when there was a preacher in his Pohick Church. He did not generally attend if there was only a reader. Family tradition says that George Washington or someone else read sermons on many Sundays to the family.12
While his average attendance of about one time a month or so seems like a minimal commitment today, the fact is that it was substantial in his day, because the Washington family had to travel about nine miles over wilderness, dirt roads, often through mud or snow. Then, when they arrived at the church, it was unheated. (This was to prevent church fires.) Since the preacher was only there about once per month, if there was a preacher at all, or a healthy one available,13 the Washington family was rather exemplary in worship. The Washington family also frequently suffered with the health maladies that in that day had little medically sound treatment.
From his diaries, we can see that he was a serious, but not a strict Sabbath keeper. Tradition records Washington being stopped in New England, while president, for traveling on the Sabbath day. He promptly cut his journey short and went to worship in this Puritan town. While his diary does not mention being stopped, Washington does record the events of the day.14
In Virginia, Washington never hesitated to travel on Sundays. Sundays were a day to travel, so that an early Monday activity could occur, whether for business or pleasure. But he did not fox hunt or work on Sundays, except for the quiet work of writing letters in the privacy of his room. He would give his servant and staff and soldiers Sundays off, if possible, for the opportunity to worship. To answer Boller’s charge that George Washington fox hunted on Sundays, we note that on two Sundays Washington does mention fox hunting, but a careful reading of his diary states that he traveled to fox hunt, not that he fox hunted.15 The Mondays following show that he spent the day in this favorite activity. Throughout his diaries, Sundays are always free from work activity or are passed over largely unnoticed, except for church attendance or hospitality given to guests.
Washington often entertained guests going to or coming from church on Sundays, which frequently included local or traveling clergy. In fact, his letters and diaries reveal that he either wrote to or entertained in his home over one hundred different clergymen!16
We also know from Tobias Lear’s notes that while he was George Washington’s personal and family assistant when he was president, that either George or Lear read sermons to the family. George Washington Parke Custis, George Washington’s adopted grandson, says that the President’s Sunday was marked by a strict Sabbath rest.17 Only the Sunday evening visit of the Speaker of the House was permitted as an exception. The promptness of the Speaker’s visit, says Custis, resulted in the Sunday bell being called “The Speaker’s Bell.”
The diaries do show a period immediately after George Washington’s return from the presidency to Mount Vernon of a non-attendance at church. Several reasons come to mind to explain this absence. Washington was likely overwhelmed with Mount Vernon work after eight years in the military, and then, after only a few years break to try to catch up, he had eight more years away from his plantation while president.
Further, his local church of Pohick had basically been closed for Episcopalian worship, with the disestablishment of the Church, and the physical limitations and clerical retirement of Reverend Massey. Massey had lost his front teeth and could no longer preach clearly and having lost tax support from the Virginia legislature, a new clergyman could not be hired. George Washington actually answered a letter from patriot and Presbyterian clergyman Reverend Dr. John Witherspoon about the status of the Pohick church. He answered, saying it had a preacher at the time.18
George Washington’s interest in the new church in Alexandria was sincere, since he bought a pew there, but it too was a very long drive from Mount Vernon over the same kinds of roads that had made it difficult for George and his family to attend Pohick. As mentioned above, given the fame Washington had acquired, it had to be tempting for George and Martha just to stay home on some Sundays and simply to read the sermons he had begun to collect, and thus avoid the church-going curiosity seekers.
Finally, as a world-renowned leader, his correspondence continued to grow, but he was now without a presidential staff. Sundays had always been correspondence days for George.
But after about a year, George Washington returned to his regular church attendance pattern. While Alexandria by this time had weekly services, so the aging and weary president, who simply wanted to enjoy his “vine and fig tree” of Mount Vernon, chose not to attend every week. He was, however, preparing to meet his own death “with good grace,” whenever he would be summoned by “the Giver of Life.”19 His aspiration was to die at Mount Vernon and be buried and be known as “an honest man.”20 When George Washington breathed his last, his funeral was conducted by the Alexandrian Episcopal Church’s pastor, Reverend Thomas Davis. He conducted the service at Mount Vernon, where Washington’s remains were interred. Years later, when the family crypt was moved to its new (and current site), his heirs put on the vault a text that played a prominent role in the Book of Common Prayer’s Funeral Liturgy –“I am the resurrection and the life.” These, of course, are words found in John 11:25.
All told, Washington’s Sundays corroborate the claim that he was a churchman.
THE SWITCH FROM POHICK TO CHRIST CHURCH, ALEXANDRIA
Why Washington ceased his worship at Pohick is not completely known, but one reason seems obvious. As noted earlier, with the retirement of Lee Massey and the loss of governmental support for the established Anglican Church at the beginning of the Revolution, worship services at Pohick became few and far between. As the result of the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church under Jefferson’s and Madison’s Bill on religious liberty, on Easter, 1786, by Act of Assembly, all vestries were dissolved and the Protestant Episcopal Church was incorporated.21 This ended the official family connection with Pohick, since Lund Washington’s brief tenure as a vestryman in Truro Parish was terminated by the Act.
From this time on, Washington generally attended services at Christ Church in Alexandria. There is example, however, of his still worshiping on occasion at Pohick. On October 2, 1785, a guest preacher was at Pohick, and the Washingtons traveled to hear him. George’s diary says,
Went with Fanny Bassett, Burwell Bassett, Dr. Stuart, George A. Washington, Mr. Shaw and Nelly Custis to Pohick Church to hear a Mr. Thompson preach who returned home with us to dinner, where I found Reverend Mr. Jones, formerly a Chaplain in a Pa. Regiment. After we were in bed about eleven o’clock at night, Mr. Houdon (sent from Paris by Mr. Jefferson and Dr. Franklin to take my Bust, in behalf of the State of Virginia, with three young men, assistants, introduced by Mr. Perin a French gentleman of Alexandria) arrived here by water from the latter place. 3d. October. The two Reverend gentlemen who dined and lodged here went away after breakfast.22
On April 25, 1785, Washington signed a bond that bound him and his family “forever” with an annual pew rent for the very pew that he had purchased over a decade before. The attention to detail and the intricacy of this document, which was so typical of Washington, seem to indicate that Washington himself helped write up the agreement:
We, the subscribers, do hereby agree that the pews we now hold in the Episcopal Church at Alexandria shall be forever charged with annual rent of five pounds, Virginia money, each; and we hereby promise to pay (each for himself promising to pay) annually, forever, to the Minster and Vestry of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Fairfax Parish, or, if the Parish should be divided, to the Minister and Vestry of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Alexandria, the said sum of five pounds for each pew for the purpose of supporting the Minster in the said Church. Provided nevertheless that if any law of this Commonwealth should hereafter compel us, our heirs, executors and administrators or assigns, to pay to the support of Religion, the pew-rent hereby granted shall, in that case, be considered as part of what we, by such law, be required to pay. Provided also that each of us pay only in proportion to the part we hold of the said pews. For the performance of which payments, well and truly to be made forever annually, within six months after demanded, we hereby bind ourselves (each for himself separately) our heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, firmly by these presents. In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals this 25th day of April in the year of our Lord 1785.23
This record is corroborated by Nelly Custis Lewis, George and Martha’s adopted granddaughter. “General Washington had a pew in Pohick Church and one in Christ Church, Alexandria. He attended the church at Alexandria when the weather and roads permitted a ride of ten miles.”24 You can visit the original pew itself at Christ Church. (The interior of Pohick Church was destroyed by Union soldiers during the Civil War; it has since been restored, and the restoration includes Washington’s box pew.)
Some skeptics have argued that he did not attend Communion for the last several years of his life because he didn’t believe in the Christian doctrine of atonement. We disagree with the premise of the argument—-that he never received Communion once the war started. We will consider that question in a later chapter.
George Washington’s religion was quiet and personal—-yet, he went to church, taking his family with him. When one looks at Washington, whose creed was “deeds not words,” his deeds, at every point, represent a man committed to the Christian faith. He served his church at great sacrifice. He took his personal wealth and invested in church buildings, pews, and various decorations for the church.
His diaries, and other records show that he knew some sixty pastors that were either personal friends or who were entertained by George and Martha in their home. In addition, he wrote letters to over forty pastors from across the country. The records further show that he had prayers at his table when a clergyman was present, and sometimes he led the thanksgiving prayers at his own table (if a minister was not present). Dr. Ashabel Green, one of the chaplains of the Congress from 1792 to 1800 wrote:
It was the usage under President Washington’s administration that the chaplains of Congress should dine with him once in every month, when Congress was in session...the place of the chaplain was directly opposite to the President. The company stood while the blessing was asked, and on certain occasions, the President’s mind was probably occupied with some interesting concern, and on going to the table he began to ask a blessing himself. He uttered but a word or two, when, bowing to me, he requested me to proceed...I mention this, because it shows that President Washington always asked a blessing himself when a chaplain was not present.25
George Washington said after absent-mindedly praying with a clergyman present, “At least the Reverend Gentleman will know that we are not entirely graceless at Mount Vernon.”26
On Sunday mornings he went to church. On Sunday nights, he usually read a sermon or a passage of scripture to Martha and the children.27 One eyewitness, quoted by nineteenth century Washington biographer E. C. M’Guire, shows how regularly Washington was at church attendance. The eye-witness remarked to a visiting friend, who was curious to see the Father of his Country, “You will certainly see him on Sunday, as he is never absent from church when he can get there....”28 Where could a visitor go to see George Washington? In church.
Eleanor Parke (“Nelly”) Custis, who was George and Martha Washington’s granddaughter, made a remark that also reflects the man’s commitment to church attendance: “No one in church attended the services with more reverential respect.”29 E. C. M’Guire adds this about George Washington’s church attendance:
The interruptions which sometimes occurred, preventing divine service being performed in camp, did not interfere with attention to the duty on the part of the Commander-in-chief. For one of his Secretaries, Judge Harrison, has often been heard to say, that “whenever the General could be spared from camp, on the Sabbath, he never failed riding out to some neighbouring church, to join those who were publicly worshipping the Great Creator.” This was done by him, we presume, when there was no public worship in camp.30
Attending church does not make one a Christian per se, but it is a sign of interest in the things of God. By his own accounts and the accounts of others, Washington was a churchman.
CONCLUSION
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.
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Philip Slaughter
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