Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-08-22
THE RAMBLER WRITES MORE OF LEWIS
CHAPEL AND EARLY VIRGINIA METHODISM
The First Church of o.
coquan" oldest Tomb
stone in Churchyard- Pas
tors of the First Methodist
Churches of Old Dominion

T EwIs CHAPEL, a faded, warped
! and abandoned house of pray
| er of early Methodsm in the
! Gunston, Pohick and Occoquan
neighborhood of Fairfax county, has
been mentioned in previous ram
bles," but it must also find place in
+; this. A venerable shrine, where many
| of your ancestors offered up their
prayers cannot be lightly passed even
by so humble an annalist as the
Rambler.
The chapel stands in grove of
oaks with a somber cedar here and
] there. and in the shade of these trees
i are many old tombstoneS and hun
dreds of graves not marked by any
sign that tells the pilgrims what man
| or woman was laid to rest there.
Leading southeast from the chapel is
| a road which takes one to HallowinS
point on the Potomac, with branch
roads and lanes striking off to houses
and estates of great age and ro-
! mantle interest. Southwest leads a
road to Colchester, town which
stood on the upper side of Occoquan
creek and which passed from the map
before your grandmother was born.
Where Lewis Chapel stands mem
bers of the Established Church in Vir-
ginia built a small frame church,
which at first was called the Church
of Occoquan," or "the Church at &C
coquan," and which is now written of
as 1.-The first Pohick Church. gran
lite marker at Lewis Chapel is in
scribed: site of the First Pohick
Church, 173O-1774." After the aban-
Comment of the first church of Pohlck
that is, when the Episcopal congre-
cation had built a fine brick and
stone church two miles aWay-the
Methodists, who had become numer-
of the old church as their meeting
place Whether they took as their
church home the little frame build
ing left behind by the Episcopal con-
gregation, the Rambler does not
know, and he believes that no man
knows.
It may be that the first church of
Pohick had decayed and fallen be-
fore the Methodists came and that
they built a new church there be-
cause it was the junction of two of
the main roads in the region That is
probably the case. When Lewis
Chapel was established the Rambler
does not know. and up to this writ
ing he has not come upon any one in
the neighborhood who does know. but
he has directions for reaching the
Plaskett and Wiley families. Those
men probably have the information
stored in their memories, and some
Sunday the Rambler will set down his
camera before their doors. The chap
ell takes it's name from a venerable
himself to the Methodists of that part
Of Virginia. The Rambler has searched
a number of records for information of
that reverent old man and has not come
upon any, but of that later.
The oldest tombstone in the ceme
DRY, of Joseph Wiley, who was born in
1915 and died in May, 1851. This
might indicate that Lewis Chapel did
not come into being for about three
quarters of a century after the first
Pohick church was left behind. The
reasons that inclined the Rambler to
think that perhaps the Methodists
worshiped in the old Pohick church
was that they had become numerous
in the neighborhood at the time of the
American revolution and that follow
ing the disestablishment of the
Church Of England in Virginia. and in
the years succeeding the close of the
revolution, many of the Episcopal
church buildings fell into state of
neglect and in some instances were
taken over by other denominations.
This state of things is touched on by
the Rev. DR.. Slaughter in his History
of Truro parish. In sketching the
story of Payne's Church he wrote:
This church is hereafter Q76s) known in
the yestry book the Upper Church, but
probably from the beginning was popularity
known as Payne's Church. 1t stood the
present road from Fairfax Court House to Fair
fax station. two and a half miles from the
former and one mile from the latter Its fate
was that of many of its contemporaries. After
the revolution it was dsused, except perhaps,
for occasional services Early in the last CEN
utry the Baptists took possession of it as aban-
doned property. the judgments of the
courts allowed them to do. and upon the dv-
sion Of that denomina ton in 1910 the Jerusa-
lem Baptist Church New SCHOOL, was organ
lied in the building and continued to it