Truro Parish
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Truro Parish was a colonial parish of the Anglican Church in northern Virginia. It was created in 1732 when Hamilton Parish was divided along the Occoquan River and Bull Run. The parish originally contained three churches: Occoquan (the parish seat), William Gunnell's, and a chapel "above Goose Creek". The Occoquan church was later known as Pohick Church, which is now Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia.
Truro Church takes its name from Truro Parish, created by the General Assembly of Virginia on November 1, 1732. It included what is, at present, Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun counties, and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, and Falls Church. The parish was named after Truro Parish (now the Diocese of Truro) in Cornwall, England. The cornerstone of the current main church of Truro is from Truro Cathedral in Cornwall.
[edit] History of Truro Parish
Truro Parish initially covered all of the land north of those rivers up to the Potomac, and westward all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains at Ashby's Gap. The parish originally contained three churches: Occoquan (the parish seat), William Gunnell's, and a chapel "above Goose Creek". The exact locations of the second two are unknown, but the Occoquan church was later known as Pohick Church, which still stands. In 1733, work was started on a new church "near Michael Reagan's"; this became the present-day Falls Church.
On June 11, 1749, the parish was divided in two, with the newly-formed Cameron Parish constituting the portion north and west of Difficult Run and Popes Head Run. George Mason, author of the Virginia Articles that presaged the Bill of Rights, was elected to the parish vestry that year.
In 1753, the first church service at the new town of Alexandria was recorded.
George Washington was appointed to the vestry of Pohick Church on October 25, 1762. His father, Augustine Washington, had served on the vestry for a few years, starting in 1735 .
Truro Parish was further split on February 1, 1765. The new boundary was just south of Washington's estate, and the northern portion became Fairfax Parish, with The Falls Church as its seat. Parishioners of Truro, however, complained that the division was far more favorable to Fairfax Parish, and succeeded in having a new border drawn through Washington's estate.
Later churches included Payne's Church on Ox Road (1766), and replacements for The Falls Church (started in 1763, while it was still part of Truro Parish) and Pohick Church in 1767.
Parish records become scant in 1785.
In those early years, there were only two churches in the parish: a chapel above Goose Creek (in what is now Loudoun County) and the original Pohick Church near Occoquan, in southern Fairfax County. In 1766, a new church was established “on the middle ridge near Ox Road,” the present site of Jerusalem Baptist Church off Route 123. The Truro Parish vestry contracted Edward Payne to build this new church and it became known as “Payne’s Church.”
With the outbreak of war with England in 1776, Payne’s Church fell into disrepair and was abandoned. The Jerusalem Baptist Church later took possession of the building until the outbreak of the Civil War when Union troops demolished the church, disassembling it brick by brick and using the materials to build chimneys for their tents.
There was no Episcopal Church in the City of Fairfax until The Rev. Richard Templeton Brown, rector of The Falls Church, organized a congregation in 1843. The congregation first met at the historic Fairfax Courthouse and then moved to the private home of Mrs. William Rumsey, a Baptist from New York. There were fourteen communicants. A year later, a plain white frame church was built on the present site of the Truro Chapel and was consecrated as Zion Church in 1845.
As Union troops advanced into Virginia at the outset of the Civil War, the congregation was forced to abandon Zion Church. During the Civil War, Zion Church was first used as a storehouse for munitions and then was destroyed. The house that is now the Gunnell House (at that time a private residence) was used as the Union headquarters by General Stoughton until 1863 when he was captured in the middle of the night by Confederate Captain John Mosby. Graffiti written by the officers stationed in the house was found on the walls in a closet on the third floor and is now on display at the Fairfax Museum.
In 1882, the house was purchased for use as a rectory. At that time it was half the size it is today and was enlarged to its present form in 1911. It served as the residence of the rector of the Episcopal Church in Fairfax until 1991 when it served first as a home for single mothers and their babies (NOEL House) and then as the offices for Truro Church.
At the close of the Civil War, the congregation of Zion Church re-formed and began to meet in the Fairfax Courthouse. Zion Church was rebuilt and consecrated in 1878.
Zion Church remained in active use from 1875 through 1933, when a new church (now the Chapel) was built to serve the growing congregation of 100 parishioners. Designed to replicate the old Payne’s Church on Ox Road, the new church was consecrated on May 1, 1934, as Truro Episcopal Church. The old Zion Church building was used as the Parish Hall until it burned down in 1952.
[edit] Present-day Truro Parish Church
In modern times, Truro Parish refers to Truro Church, an Anglican (or "orthodox Episcopal") parish/church in Fairfax, Virginia. It is one of the largest Anglican parishes in the United States with an Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) of over 1400 in 2002, placing it 5th in the United States for non-cathedral church attendance.[citation needed]
The Rev. Dr. Raymond Davis was installed as rector of Truro in 1948. He said that he would be pleased if he could, just once, fill all one hundred seats of the little brick church. Not only were all the seats filled, but the growing congregation began to burst at the seams as the great suburban expansion of Northern Virginia began in the 1950’s. In 1959, a new and larger church was completed with a seating capacity of 500. The congregation first worshiped in the new church on Palm Sunday, 1959, and when the mortgage was paid off in 1974, a new Truro Church building was consecrated. (The old church building is now known as the Chapel.)
In 1967, a small group of Truro parishioners (who had been meeting together for Bible study and prayer) began a mission church called the Church of the Apostles, now located east of Truro on Pickett Road.
In 1976 the Rev. John W. Howe was installed as Rector. Under his leadership Truro continued to experience physical expansion as well as spiritual renewal. The church seating capacity was expanded by 300 through the addition of the transepts in 1983. Truro also expanded its engagement in mission around the world. Another mission church, the Church of the Epiphany, was established in Herndon, Virginia in 1985, with The Rev. Bill Reardon as rector.
In 1991 the Rev. Martyn Minns was installed as Rector. He continued to emphasize a radical call to worldwide mission, and in recognition of this he was installed as an Honorary Canon of All Saints Cathedral, Mpwapwa, Tanzania. Under his leadership the Lamb Center was established to offer prayer and practical encouragement to the homeless in Fairfax, and the work of TIPS Truro’s International Programs and Services was expanded. A new mission church, Christ the Redeemer Church, was launched in western Fairfax County with The Rev. Tom Herrick as vicar in 1994. Most recently, Truro birthed another mission church in Loudoun County, the Church of the Holy Spirit in 2001, with The Rev. Clancy Nixon as vicar. Martyn Minns was recently elected Bishop.
