by James Wyatt Whitehead, V

A recent trip to study the Civil War battlefield of Fredericksburg brought me to stately Washington Avenue in one of Virginia’s most historic cities. The street is adorned with grand Victorian mansions and Kenmore, the colonial home of Fielding and Betty Lewis (George Washington’s sister). Here stands a statue to Patriot Hugh Mercer, the famed officer who led the Continentals to victory at the Battle of Princeton and died from wounds received in battle.

Not far away stands a stone monument bearing bronze plaques memorializing the January 1777 meeting of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, George Mason, George Wythe, and Thomas Ludwell Lee to draft the Bill Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia. I have traveled this street many times, and I knew of this famed meeting of luminary patriots, but I had never noticed this modest yet important memorial.

I couldn’t help but wonder: Had I stumbled onto the very fountainhead of religious freedom in Virginia? A brief search on my cell phone revealed that this memorial dated back to 1932. No fountain here, but I was close, for the memorial had originally been installed on George Street near the site of Weedon’s Tavern, where Jefferson and company began their earnest work. It was moved in 1977 to its current, more attractive location.

My journey next brought me to the site of Weedon’s Tavern. The building that stands there today looks like an old A&P Supermarket that is now an antique store. Old Weedon’s Tavern burned in 1807. The establishment was owned by one of Washington’s generals, George Weedon. (I have to assume Washington slept here too.) It is here that members of the Committee of Law Revisors began their task to remake the government of Virginia.

Jefferson did not tarry long after drafting his famous independence document in Philadelphia. He viewed the work at hand in Fredericksburg as far more important. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be seated at a table in Weedon’s Tavern with Jefferson and company. The debate and discussion are lost to time, but the finished work of Jefferson’s Statute of Religious Freedom was enacted nine years later. Those inspired words of religious freedom and the separation of church and government would be carried forward into the Bill of Rights by James Madison.

Perhaps the fountainhead of religious freedom rests with Jefferson’s body at the Monticello graveyard. His current tombstone is considered the second oldest memorial to the cause. Interestingly, Jefferson’s original tombstone can be found at the University of Missouri. That is where the oldest monument to religious freedom resides. His epitaph included the reference: “Author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.”

Curiosity led me to conclude that the source of religious freedom must be found somewhere else. What inspired patriots to take up the cause of religious freedom? Why would a confirmed deist such as Jefferson have interest in the free will to exercise the right of worship?

We are still in Fredericksburg, this time at the old Spotsylvania County Court House, where the old city court house now stands majestically on Princess Anne Street. On June 4, 1768 John Waller, James Reed, Elijah Craig, Lewis Craig, and William Marshall were jailed for preaching without a license at Craig’s Upper Spotsylvania Baptist Church. The prosecuting attorney added to the charge of exhorting without a license that “These men are great disturbers of the peace; they cannot meet a man upon the road, but they must ram a text of Scripture down his throat.”

Waller and his compatriots were disturbers indeed. Previously, these Baptist and Presbyterian dissenters had probed and pushed against the authority of Virginia’s colonial government, the landed gentry, and the established Church of England. Now it was open rebellion. The accused would be released with a bond of 1,000 pounds if they promised to refrain from preaching. Waller and company refused. They were held for 43 days until the court’s next meeting date. As the prisoners were walked down the streets to the “gaol,” Waller led them in the singing of the old hymn, “Broad is the Road that Leads to Death” — a warning to all of the dangers of hypocrisy.

But confining the dissenting Baptist ministers did not quell the disturbances. Large crowds gathered at the jail’s windows to hear Waller and the Craig brothers preach. The sheriff hired ruffians to break up the crowds, loudly beat on drums to drown out the exhorting, and stoned those who came to hear the Word. Yet, the longer Waller remained in jail, the larger the crowds of supporters became.

Lewis Craig was released early. His subsequent journey to Williamsburg to secure a letter of release from Acting Governor John Blair was a success. But the Court of Spotsylvania ignored the directive. What happened next includes two possibilities. One story claims that John Waller successfully defended himself and his fellow brothers in a jury trial and were promptly released. Another legend claims that Patrick Henry rode by horseback 50 miles to defend Waller and company. In the flourish of Henry’s oratory, the jury released the dissenters.

Scenes such as what happened in Fredericksburg were repeated throughout Virginia. In 1771, Waller was imprisoned again in Caroline County. His punishment was a public horsewhipping. The 20 lashes from the sheriff left scars that Waller carried to the grave. In another instance, landed aristocrats pulled the determined Waller from the pulpit. But despite being bloodied and beaten, he would not relent.

Elijah and Lewis Craig were also jailed for a lengthy period in Middlesex County. But incarceration only seemed to spread the revival flames further and further from Virginia’s Tidewater into the Piedmont. John Weatherford and the Apostles of Religious Liberty are memorialized at the Chesterfield County Courthouse. The Baptist preacher, James Ireland, was jailed for preaching without a license in Culpeper. Beaten, starved, and near death, Ireland signed every letter he wrote, “From My Palace In Culpeper.” His cruel jailor eventually became his defender and follower. The lock and key to the Culpeper jail are on display at the University of Richmond. A Baptist church occupies the former site of Ireland’s prison. In all, there are more than 50 documented accounts of dissenting ministers being jailed and thousands of accounts of abuses suffered by believers.

In 1776, Baptist dissenters sent a petition to the Virginia General Assembly seeking relief. It is a remarkable document with 10,000 signatures gathered from across the state.

The men who gathered at Weedon’s Tavern in January of 1777 knew the dissenters. Jefferson’s aunt was a Baptist and he had visited her meetinghouse. Patrick Henry heard the words of Presbyterian Samuel Davies at Pole Green Church. George Mason corresponded directly with dissenters. Washington proclaimed his “firmness that Baptists are our friends.” Madison wrote of his disgust at the jailing of William Marshall (John Marshall’s uncle) for preaching to a throng of 4,000 at Blue Run Church in Orange, Virginia. An important unwritten arrangement was made. Religious freedom was a powerful bargaining chip to persuade the dissenters to support the cause of revolution. Interestingly, the dissenters wished more for total separation of church and government than a guarantee of rights. Their distrust of authority could not be overcome.

My quest to locate the fountainhead of religious freedom in Virginia has led me across the state. As I have pursued the origination of religious freedom, I’ve discovered that nearly every part of the state can lay claim to the mantle of religious freedom. James Madison was right when he said, “Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of government.”

James Wyatt Whitehead V is a retired Loudoun County history teacher.