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huge area was served by three churches: St. Paul’s in Woodville, Piedmont in Madison, and South Church in Wolftown, on the Rapid Anne (Rapidan) River, also in Madison County.
Since what is now the Episcopal Church of the United States had its roots in the Anglican Church of England, the church went through a difficult period during the time of the Revolutionary War and the years following. The clergymen appointed by the Church of England served as the first organized government in outlying territories such as Rappahannock, and they were often the targets of the wrath of discontented colonists.
In addition to the anger generated by the clergy’s symbolic representation of the King, taxes were also paid to the Anglican Church - regardless of whether or not the taxpayer belonged to the church. There were many Baptists and Protestants in the Piedmont, and their displeasure at paying taxes to a religion to which they did not subscribe was great.
Although Massachusetts became ' famous for the Boston Tea Party, symbolizing the colonists’ opposition to “Taxation without Representation,” there was much opposition to the King and his taxes in Virginia as well.
Loyalties among the ministers themselves were divided: some disobeyed the church and sided with * the colonists, others supported the Crown and eventually fled the colonies and returned to England.
Following the Revolution, the Anglican Church nearly disappeared in the United States, due largely to its historic ties with the English Crown and the colonists’ bitter memories of their long fight for independence.
In fact, the settlers’ hatred was so intense that, during the War of 1812, a church located in Slate Mills was torn down by angry farmers. The church was never rebuilt, and a historic marker at the site is the only testimony to its existence.
In the mid-1800s the rector of Bromfield Parish was the Rev. William F. Leavell, who wrote in his diary on Dec. 22, 1853: “The extremes of my parish being 40 miles apart and each about 20 miles from my home . . . many times the weather was inclement and so cold indeed as to freeze my buffalo overshoes to my stirrups. But through all weathers I went to minister the services of the Church to poor congregations.”
In addition to the three churches, “chapels of ease” had also been constructed in several places, located more conveniently to settlers in the remote regions of the parish. One such structure was built in the 1700s at what is now Aubrey Keyser’s farm in Tiger Valley outside Wash
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