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Historic Polegreen Church

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Historic Polegreen Church is a historic site located in Hanover County, Virginia, 12 miles from downtown Richmond. The current silhouette structure marks the foundations of an original colonial meeting house while presenting an interpretive enhancement designed by Virginia architect Carlton Abbott. This design, along with a timeline of the history of religious freedom, memorializes the layered history that defines Polegreen – from its rebellious religious roots and trailblazing historical figures to it Civil War experience and contemporary preservation initiatives.

1. Colonial period

1a. Early church

During the religious movement that became known as “First Great Awakening" in the late 1730's, Samuel Morris, a Hanover County brick mason, was inspired to hold Bible readings in his home for his friends and family. The readings of Morris soon became so popular that he built what became known as a Morris Reading Room to accommodate the growing numbers of participants.  The Church of England  coined the name because they refused to acknowledge these places of worship as official churches. Eventually, four other Reading Rooms were built, three in Hanover and one in Henrico. By the late 1740’s the congregation outgrew even the Reading Room so in 1748 the Polegreen Meeting House was built.

1b. Samuel Davies and religious freedom

One of the most prominent figures in the history of Polegreen was Samuel Davies, a traveling preacher and the first non-Anglican minister to be licensed to preach in Virginia. He was requested to come and preach at Polegreen by the Hanover Dissenters, who saw the value in his sermons promoting the “freeborn mind” and a “liberty of conscience” not usually accepted by the Anglican Church. He spent twelve years at the Polegreen Church until 1759 and made a remarkable contribution to the religious and political climate of the colony. Among his achievements was his pioneering effort in the education of black slaves, believing that true evangelism meant equal access to the Bible for all people. For more than a century, the Polegreen Church stood as a monument to the Hanover Dissenters and Samuel Davies in their struggle for religious liberty in pre-revolutionary America.

1c. Patrick Henry

Patriot Patrick Henry worshipped at Polegreen with his mother Sarah Winston Syme, a Hanover dissenter, during the twelve years Samuel Davies preached in Virginia. He would walk four miles every week with his mother to hear Samuel Davies speak. Before Henry's death he credited Davies with "teaching me what an orator should be."

2. Civil War Era

In 1864, during America’s Civil War, Polegreen Church rested squarely in the center of the ongoing Battle of Cold Harbor. During an attack the Union forces overran the Confederate outer positions and occupied the church, using at as a base of operations for a time. In an effort to dislodge Union sharpshooters, the Confederate [insert unit of artillery] shelled the church, sparking a fire that burned the structure to the ground. One of the Union soldiers [name] had made a few sketches of the church and the surrounding landscape before the fire and it was these sketches that allowed modern historians to locate the site.

3. Preservation

In 1990, the Historic Polegreen Church Foundation began to preserve, enhance, and interpret this critical archeological site. The silhouette structure, completed in 2001, provides the backdrop for the interpretation of Polegreen’s rich story and diverse history.

http://www.historicpolegreen.org/