Slash Church

About this property

Slash Church, also known as the Upper Church-St. Paul's Parish is a historic Disciples of Christ Church, formerly an Anglican/Episcopal church located at 11353 Mt. Hermon Road, Ashland, Hanover County, Virginia. Built of southern yellow pine cut from the property in 1729–30, it is the oldest frame house of worship still in use in Virginia. Slash Church was built under the direction of Edward Chambers and Thomas Pinchbeck in 1729, five years after the absentee minister (who remained in England but hired a curate to serve Hanover County, Virginia boundaries declared 1720), informed the bishop of London that the parish was 60 miles long and twelve wide and served 1200 families by means of four churches (the priest alternating between them on the various Sundays of the month). St. Martin's Parish was also set off from St. Paul's parish in 1727. The predecessor building (sometimes known as the "Mechumps Creek Chapel"), built circa 1702, was about a mile and a half north of this structure. Current research indicates it was located behind the current Hanover Tavern across the tracks and up a hill where there is a good source of water (pond). No structure currently exists of this chapel. The Slash name derives from the "slashes" – ravines that formed in the sandy clay soil after rainstorms plus the Pine Slash trees. This terrain has a high ground water level so it was important to place this structure on a hill. Rev. George Whitfield, founding Methodist Francis Asbury, Virginia Baptist Reuben Ford and Disciples of Christ founder Alexander Campbell are believed to have preached at the church during their various missionary tours. Because Rev. Patrick Henry (uncle to the founding father Patrick Henry) served as minister of St. Paul's Parish for four decades (1737–1777), his nephew did occasionally attend the church. However, Patrick Henry's mother was a dissenter, and he is known to have attended Polegreen Church (a Presbyterian or freethinking meetinghouse) nearby. Dolley Madison and Henry Clay are also believed to have attended this church. Rev. Henry's successor, Rev. Talley, became a Universalist and after the American Revolutionary War, the Anglican church was disestablished (i.e. no longer supported by taxes) and the building variously abandoned or used by various denominations, including Methodists and Disciples of Christ, and as a school. The latter denomination purchased the property in 1842, two years after the Episcopal congregation built a brick church about four miles away which burned on a December evening and then constructed another church of wood in the 1850s revival style which continues in their use for weekly services to the present day.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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