Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 06/19/1991
NRHP Listing Date 09/04/1991
DHR's Virginia Board of Historic Resources easement
NRHP Reference Number 91001089
The 1740s Polegreen reading house and the adjacent 1750s Polegreen church in Hanover County were the base from which Pastor Samuel Davies carried the widespread social and spiritual movement of the Great Awakening throughout much of the South. Polegreen was Davies’s first church, and here he stirred the popular disaffection that led to a central role in the Parson’s Cause and related social, literary, and legal confrontations between New Side Presbyterians and the Anglican establishment. The sermons Davies delivered at the Hanover Meeting House had a profound effect on the political disposition and oratory of Patrick Henry. The church was destroyed on June 1, 1864, during early stages of the battle of Cold Harbor. The Hanover Meeting House site is now maintained by the Historic Polegreen Church Foundation which sponsored an archaeological investigation in 1990 when the sites of the church and reading house were identified.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: June 24, 2022
