The "Dissenters' Glebe" of the Rev. Samuel Davies

ND-19

Just west was Polegreen Church’s 18th-century glebe, a farm and residence provided for the benefit of its pastor. Polegreen was a congregation of Presbyterians dissenting from Virginia’s established Church of England. The Rev. Samuel Davies (1723-1761), a leader of the Great Awakening in the South, was Polegreen's first pastor (1748-1759). A powerful orator, he gained converts, founded churches, defended the rights of dissenters, and influenced the oratorical style of Patrick Henry. Although holding at least two people in slavery, he worked to spread literacy among enslaved people, converting many to Christianity. Davies died at the age of 37 while president of what is now Princeton University.

Department of Historic Resources, 2023

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

William Bland Whitley, “Samuel Davies, 1723-1761,” Encyclopedia Virginia: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/davies-samuel-1723-1761/ Anne Geddy Cross, “The Dissenters’ Glebe,” Hanover County Historical Society Bulletin (winter 2003). Jeffrey H. Richards, “Samuel Davies and the Transatlantic Campaign for Slave Literacy in Virginia,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 11, no. 4 (2003): 333-378. George W. Bost, “Samuel Davies: Colonial Revivalist and Champion of Religious Toleration,” (University of Chicago, Ph.D. diss, 1942). Dewey Roberts, Samuel Davies, Apostle to Virginia (Destin, FL: Sola Fide Publications, 2017). George William Pilcher, Samuel Davies: Apostle of Dissent in Colonial Virginia (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971). Robert Bluford Jr., A Sketch: Polegreen and Samuel Davies (Hanover: The Historic Polegreen Church Foundation, 1991). John Kukla, Patrick Henry: Champion of Liberty (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017). Hanover Meeting House NRHP nomination (1991).