Pohick Church

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Pohick Church is an Episcopal church in the community of Lorton in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Often called the "Mother Church of Northern Virginia", the church is notable for its association with important figures in early Virginia history such as George Washington and George Mason, both of whom served on its vestry. As Pohick Episcopal Church it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.HistoryEarly colonial period: first churchesThe origins of Pohick Church can be traced to a chapel of ease for Overwharton Parish, which appears to have been built around 1695 in the Woodlawn area of today's community of Mount Vernon. This church, the first in the parish and thus the first in Northern Virginia, was recorded in a 1715 land grant as being along the Potomac Path, the "county main road", which today is U.S. Route 1. In 1730 the parish relocated the church south, building a frame structure, the so-called "church above Occoquan Ferry" near what later became the community of Colchester. The site of this church is today occupied by Cranford United Methodist Church; there, a stone in the churchyard marks the original site of Pohick Church, and a walkway of oversized brick on the property is thought to date from the period of the original building. No other trace of the original structure or its site exists; the last remnant was the cemetery, whose location is known but which was empty of grave markers by 1938.