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Greenwich Presbyterian: a witness to history
For two centuries, fire, war and development have periodically ravaged the landscape of Prince William County. Not many of the county's original buildings are left and even fewer are still in use. Those that are carry unique stories, passed along by generations of their inhabitants.
Greenwich Presbyterian Church is one. The one-room structure on Vint Hill Road in Nokesville was built in 1858, but its legacy began decades before.
On Sunday, the congregation celebrated the 200th anniversary of the founding of the church, which was officially organized in 1810.
Origins
The church was started as an informal gathering in the home of Aminta Elizabeth Moxley in 1802.
According to unofficial church historian Susan Polk, Moxley was the only Presbyterian in the area and started the church group because she missed Presbyterian fellowship.
The gathering grew and in 1810 they organized themselves as an official church and built a log cabin for their services near the spot where the current church stands. As more members joined, they needed to expand and a second log structure was built.
In 1858, Charles Green, an Englishman who owned a home in Greenwich, funded the construction of an actual church building.
Green was a cotton merchant who lived in Savannah, Geo. After marrying Greenwich native Lucy Ireland Hunton, he built a Gothic revival farm complex on Vint Hill Road and named it The Lawn. (The main house burned in 1924 and was replaced in 1926 with a Tudor revival structure that still stands on the property).
The new church was built at 15307 Vint Hill Road, behind the log buildings on property donated by Green.
Just a few feet from the church window, the first tombstone laid in the cemetery bears the name of Aminta E. Moxley, who had begun hosting the congregation in her home more than 50 years before her death in 1858.
In a 2005 interview, Polk said Moxley lived long enough to see the structure built and died later in the year. She was the first person buried in the cemetery.
War
Several years later, the Civil War broke out and all of western Prince William became a continuous thoroughfare for both Union and Confederate troops. Throughout the county and the south, both armies were seizing churches to be used as hospitals and stables. It wasn't long before Union commanders showed up in Greenwich to take over the Presbyterian church.
“Green said absolutely no way that they were going to be desecrating the church in this way,” Polk said.
He told the soldiers that he had donated the site and the funds for the church with the agreement that the structure would be given back to him if it ever stopped being used for a church. Since he was a British subject, that would make the church English property.
“Neither one of the sides wanted to mess with a British subject,” Polk said.
The troops agreed to stay out of the church and instead took over one of the old log cabins, which was still standing.
While the soldiers were occupying the log structure, it caught fire and burned down. The brick church, however, survived the war and was the only church in Prince William left undamaged by the conflict.
Green, however, opened his home to soldiers from both armies, as did the Rev. Thomas Balch, who was the preacher at Greenwich Presbyterian, said Brentsville District Supervisor Wally Covington.
And although the church was never occupied, it did host soldiers regularly.
According to Covington, the preacher wrote that although much of the congregation had scattered, Union soldiers stationed nearby attended services at Greenwich Presbyterian throughout the war.
“Due to the quiet determination of Mr. Green and Rev. Balch, soldiers were able to find some peace here as well,” Covington said.
Mosby's English soldier
Outside the sanctuary, hundreds of tombstones wrap around all four sides of the small church. Some are shiny and new – only a few years old. Others, almost 150 years old, have been worn almost illegible by time and weather. Some are only rough-cut field stones and were never marked.
But one stands out among the others. A stone pyramid, topped with a cross, marks the grave of “Bradford Smith Hoskins, son of the Reverend W.W. Hoskins, Rector of Chiddingstone, Kent, England, Late Captain in Her Britannic Majesty's Forty-Fourth Regiment. He fell near this place XXXI May MDCCCLXIII, AE XXX years.”
A bit of deciphering reveals that Hoskins was about 30 years old when he died on May 31, 1863.
In 1968, builder and history buff James L. Cook wrote an article about Hoskins that was printed in a trade publication.
According to Cook, Hoskins was an English army officer who had joined Mosby's Raiders and was killed during the Civil War.
Hoskins was a professional soldier who, apparently bored after the end of the English Crimean Campaign, traveled to America and joined up with the Confederate Army at the height of the Civil War.
He ended up with Col. John Singleton Mosby's band of partisan rangers, who frequently raided the Union supply lines throughout Northern Virginia.
On May 29, 1863, Mosby left Aldie with 48 of his men, including Hoskins, headed for Catlett Station. Their intention was to disrupt the rail traffic feeding the Union Army on the Rappahannock River.
They passed through Greenwich on their way and stopped over to visit Charles Green and his family. Cook wrote that while Mosby and Green were probably not acquainted, Green's wife, Lucy, was related to several of the raiders and that the partisans were welcomed at The Lawn.
The next day the raiders traveled to Kettle Run, where they pulled up a piece of the tracks to stop the train that was coming from Nokesville. When the train derailed, Mosby's men opened fire and a skirmish ensued. The Confederates stole what they could, set fire to the train and retreated back toward Greenwich. But they quickly ran into the Fifth New York Calvary and another small battle broke out.
Back in Greenwich the next day, May 30, residents awoke to hear the sounds of battle in the distance. Green hooked his oxen to a cart loaded with ice and water and headed toward Catlett to help.
He arrived at the scene and found Hoskins, lying mortally wounded, along with another Confederate, Sam Chapman. Green loaded them both into his cart and brought them back to his home in Greenwich.
There, Chapman recovered but Hoskins died the next day. Green had him buried in the cemetery at Greenwich Presbyterian. At the request of Hoskins' father, the gravestone is topped with the cross and the inscription “In Hoc Signo Vincos” (“In this sign you will conquer.”)
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