After one month in the Culpeper Co. jail, Elijah Craig was released on good behavior but he continued the same activities which had landed him in jail. This time he emphasized the adjoining counties to Culpeper. On the east bank of the Hedgman, Craig met Pickett and they decided to form the Hedgman's River Church. Craig organized the group but Pickett became their minister, a role he was to fulfill for seventeen years.
Initially the group met in private homes in the vicinity of Freeman's Ford, south of today's Jeffersonton in the Little Fork of Culpeper Co. When the first meeting house was built is uncertain. In 1790, James and Margaret Freeman conveyed five-eighthes of an acre to the Hedgman River Baptist Society. Whether this was before or after the meeting house is unknown. Nor does any description of the early meeting house exist. In Semple's " History of Virginia Baptists ", the statement is made that the meeting houses of the early Baptists were commonly plain, weather-boarded structures, without paint either on the outside or inside. No heat was provided. The seats were rude benches without backs. Occasionally sheds were added to the basic structure which one observer said gave them a "barn-like appearance".
By 1819, most of the congregation came from Jefferson and its community. Jefferson was a town which had been approved by the legislature in 1798. The town was laid out on the property of one Joseph Coones, and comprised the lower, or southern, end of the present village of Jeffersonton. Fifty one-half acre lots were laid out for sale to the highest bidder. About this same time, the town of Springfield was approved and laid out on land of John Spilman. Two towns were not enough, and the General Assembly approved also a third town, Wealsborough, hardly more than a stone's throw away. In the course of time it became the upper end of the present village of Jeffersonton.
Between Wealsborough and Jefferson there was a tract of land which was never built up. It formed the pommel of a saddle and the two towns were the pockets of the saddle. The post office department did not put up with this two-headedness and put in only one post office, which went by the name of Jeffersonton. Joseph Coones was appointed the first post master in 1799. Though the two town concept was supported by the legislature for a few decades, the name of the post office eventually won out as the name of the community.
I have not discussed the move of the Hedgman's River Church across the river, but the Baptist association minutes locate the church in Wealsboro in 1819, in 1826 in Jefferson, and in 1834 in Jeffersonton. A history from 1835 says this about the town on Jeffersonton:
"Jeffersonton is on the Piedmont stage route from Washington to Milledgeville, Georgia. The town is built on one street and contains 43 dwelling houses, 1 Baptist house of worship, 1 Female association for the purpose of educating young men for the ministry [I can only quote what is written], 1 elementary school with 50 scholars, 3 mercantile stores, 3 taverns, 1 tanyard, 1 hat manufacturer, 3 boot and school factories, 1 wagon maker, carriage maker, and 3 house carpenters. In the population of 300, there are two physicians."
[In the next note, I will return to the main theme.]
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.