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First Churches of Fauquier County, Virginia
Submitted by Brenda Frogge

From the book Fauquier County 1759-1959 [Fauquier County Bicentennial Committee, 1959, published by Virginia Publishing, Warrenton] p.84, 85

The First Churches
The early practice in the colony had been to create counties by Act of Assembly and to require justices of the court of the new county to divide it into parishes, which were the administrative units of the Church of England.

Hamilton Parish, separated from Overwharton [Stafford Co] in 1730, antedated by some years the organization of Fauquier County in 1759.

The vestry, or governing body, of a parish consisted of twelve men, usually influential land holders, who were elected for an indefinite term... [and] had the important duty of laying the parish levy and other broad civil responsibilities. The names of the first Fauquier vestry have been lost. The first minister was the Reverend James Keith, of Peterhead, Scotland.

In 1769, Hamilton Parish was divided into the upper parish, known as Leeds, and the lower parish, to retain the name of Hamilton. [see Jim Ball's post, 11/20]

The vestry of Hamilton at that time was made up of Jeremiah Darnell, John Blackwell, Landon Carter, William Grant, William Blackwell, Daniel Bradford, James Wright, Jonathan Gibson, Zachary Lewis, William Eustace, Nicholas George and Armistead Churchill.

The first vestry of Leeds, several of whose members lived in the Court House village, consisted of Martin Pickett, John O'Bannon, James Scott, Henry Peyton, William Edmonds, Humphrey Brooke, Samuel Grigsby, William Pickett, Charles Chinn, Thomas Marshall, John Moffett and John Chilton. The first minister of Leeds was the Reverend James Thomson, who came from Glasgow, Scotland, in 1739.

The new parish of Leeds lost no time in providing places for public worship... Taylor's near Bethel; Goose Creek, near Salem; Pipers, in Leeds Manor; and Old Bull run in Prince William.

Other churches:
Old Cool Spring Meeting House was situated at the north end of Little Cobbler Mountain, land given by Col Thomas Marshall, for the use of all denominations. The first pastor was the Rev George Lemmon; the Rev Williamson, Presbyterian, and the great Methodist revivalist, Rev Collins, preached there, too. Bishop Meade wrote "at this place, Cool Spring Meeting House, I often preached.

The first nonconformist congregation came through the valley between the Broken Hills and the Pignut [Mtn] to organize the Broad Run Baptist Church. The first minutes state that the church was constituted Dec 1762, consisting of ten members: Edmund Hayes, Peter Cornwell, Joshua Dodson, Thomas Dodson, William Stamps, Elizabeth Hayes, Sara Cornwell, Ruth Dodson, and Betty Bennett. The first church house, situated on Barker's Branch, near Broad Run, was used until 1798, when a new church was built in the same locality. The present site, near New Baltimore, was devised to the congregation by Wm Hunton in 1838, at which time a church was already standing on the property.

At the formation of Fauquier in 1759, most of that area which became Fauquier was included within the Parish of Hamilton.

The area of Fauquier grew initially from the south along the Rappahannock. As the northern area filled-in, Fauquier was formed from Prince William in 1759 to its present configuration. Being one of the largest counties in the state, there was a movement to split Fauquier into a northern and southern half. This proposed county split never took place, but an ecclesiastical boundary change did. About 1769, 10 years after county formation, the Parish of Leeds, also known as Leeds Manor, was formed from Hamilton Parish. The parish boundary is loosely taken as Carter's Run. The area north of Carter's Run fell to Leeds while the southern part of the county remained Hamilton. It was in Leeds where the Fairfax leaseholds existed.

Early on, taxes were administered through the church. As the system matured, taxes/tithes were administered at the county level which made more sense. Nevertheless, the parishes continued to be referred to in court documents primarily to designate the local.