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Download the Historic Hanover County Virginia Tourism HISTORIC Visiting Hanover County Visitor centers located in Ashland and at the Cold Harbor battlefield, eight miles east of Mechanicsville, are open year round. The visitor’s center at Bass Pro Shops in Winding HANOVER Brook is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. These centers are staffed to provide assistance with orientation and trip planning. In the spring and summer months special events like Civil War encampments and National Park COUNTY WelcomeWelcome toto Service ranger guided tours help to make Hanover’s history come alive. VIRGINIA HanHanoverover County 95 New York ust a few miles north of Philadelphia Richmond lies Hanover Washington, D.C. 64 Hanover County, a special place steeped in a long County Jand colorful history. This guide is designed Norfolk to help visitors experience the people, places Roanoke Virginia Beach and, events in Hanover County that helped to 95 shape Virginia—and America. Charlotte Throughout the county, dozens of state historic markers and numerous historic sites have For more information been preserved to tell the If there is time to plan ahead consult the following web sites for information on special itineraries and stories of the earliest Native events that will help make a visit to Hanover and American inhabitants, the rich the Richmond Region even more rewarding. colonial history, the struggle Civil War for religious freedom, and the www.civilwartraveler.com www.nps.gov/rich fight for independence from the British crown. Visitor Information Three National Park sites and two county parks www.visit.richmond.com • 1-888-RICHMOND commemorate battles of the Civil War. Choose www.co.hanover.va.us one or sample them all. Hanover has something for the casual visitor or the most serious student of American history. Continued on back cover Foundations of Liberty undreds of years before the English set foot in what is now In the late 1730’s Hanover County became Virginia, indigenous people of the a center of a powerful religious movement HChickahominy, Pamunkey, and Totopotomoy tribes inhabited this place and the rivers and called the “Great Awakening.” other natural landmarks now honor their names. Jamestown brought English explorers to the region including Capt. John Smith of an established, state church. All other reli- The Reverend whose capture by the great Chief Powhatan gions and religious denominations, except for Samuel Davies, a newly in Hanover led to his legendary escape led the Church of England, were discouraged, ordained 23-year-old by Pocahontas. suppressed, and harassed. Pressure from Presbyterian preacher ar- Hanover County, chartered in 1720, quickly Hanover Dissenters forced the Governor’s rived from Pennsylvania in became well populated and emerged as a Council in Williamsburg to license four 1747 to minister to these fledgling bustling center of commerce and trade, “reading houses” in 1743. Three of these congregations. Davies became the first non- particularly tobacco. Local farmers used slave places of worship were located Anglican minister licensed to preach in labor to plant, harvest, and transport this king in Hanover. Virginia. During his 12 year tenure, crop to port at Hanovertown on the Davies led the pioneering effort to Pamunkey River for shipment around the educate the black slave, recruit world. Evidence of this prosperity can be soldiers for Governor Dinwiddie seen by driving along Hanover’s country to fight the French and Indian roads and witnessing many of the grand War, and minister to a young plantation homes built during the 18th and Patrick Henry and his mother at the 19th centuries. Polegreen (www.historicpolegreen.org) Hanover also proved to be fertile ground for meeting house. It has been said he had no cultivating an emerging nation’s revolutionary peer in the pulpit in the Colonies. Before his spirit. In the late 1730’s Hanover County death Henry credited Davies with “teaching became a center of a powerful religious Left: Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Above: movement called the “Great Awakening.” Samuel Davies Above Right: The site of Polegreen church is cel- This movement challenged traditional notions ebrated by a frame reconstruction and historic markers. Foundations of Liberty me what an orator should be.” By 1800, subjects. He asserted that by interfering Baptists, Methodists, and Quakers worshipped with a law passed by the Virginia House of in Hanover. Burgesses the King was behaving as a tyrant Most Americans cherish our first freedoms, and had sacrificed his right to the obedience but it is likely that few are familiar with the of the people in this case. Ironically, the case events in Hanover that secured this right by involved the salaries of clergymen of the influencing Virginia’s government to adopt Church of England. The case would come to be known as “The Before his death Henry credited Parsons’ Cause”. Later Henry became Above: A young Patrick Henry argues the Parson’s Cause a part of freedom case. www.parsonscause.com Left: A young Patrick Henry. Below: Henry Clay. Davies with “teaching me what lovers worldwide with his thunderous an orator should be.” words “Give me Hanover was spared much of the direct Liberty or Give action of the Revolutionary War until after the Statute of Religious Freedom in 1786. me Death” at Yorktown when American and French armies This landmark law became the inspiration for St. John’s returned. George Washington passed by the First Amendment to the United States Church minutes Hanover Courthouse at this time. Constitution forever establishing the free from Hanover. Another famous exercise of religion. This successful struggle The County is the Hanover native, Henry for liberty, in the form of religious toleration, repository of the greatest collection of Clay moved to began four decades earlier in Hanover County. Henry related sites in Virginia including his Kentucky in 1785. Hanover County’s famous son Patrick Henry birthplace Studley, his boyhood church Clay’s reputation fired his first oratorical shot of the coming Polegreen, his wedding site Rural Plains, his grew as one of the political and military disturbance known as the honeymoon cottage Pine Slash, and his adult best orators in American Revolution at Historic Hanover home Scotchtown, where he lived at the time American history as Courthouse in December 1763. Henry, a of his famous call to liberty. You can visit well as the father of young lawyer, argued that government was a these sites on the Road to Revolution at compromises which postponed the start conditional compact between the king and his www.roadtorevolution.org. of the American Civil War by decades. The Civil War hen civil war came front lines. Union raiders often at- to America in 1861, tacked those tempting targets, burned Wgeography ensured key bridges, and damaged that Hanover County would see sections of track. a prominent role in the conflict. Major campaigns in 1862 and Most of the county lay within 20 1864 devastated the county. George miles of Richmond, and just 75 miles McClellan led a large Union army against south of Washington, D.C. Northern armies, anxious to strike at the capital city of the Confederacy, repeatedly crossed through “The battles they Hanover and fought many battles on its soil. Above: The site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, Gaines’ Mill, is managed by the National Park Service. Two railroads bisected the county in the fought made the 1860s. The Virginia Central Railroad and the Hanover, Grant narrowly escaped a disastrous Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Rail- old county famous defeat at the North Anna River, only to suffer road were vital components of the Confederate a serious setback at Cold Harbor in June. supply system. They brought supplies from again, but at a These battles changed Hanover County northern and western Virginia, and transported and the lives of its inhabitants in a way none troops back and forth between the city and the heavy cost.” could have imagined. The county numbered 8,600 citizens when the war began. Just two Richmond in the spring of 1862. This period years later, combined armies of nearly of the war, known as the Seven Days 200,000 occupied the county. When the Campaign, included the Battle of armies returned in 1864, they Beaverdam Creek and the Battle brought at least 150,000 men. The of Gaines’ Mill in Hanover. battles they fought made the old Gaines’ Mill was one of the war’s county famous again, but at a bloodiest contests. In 1864, Gen- heavy cost. # Top: Enon Church, site of one of the fiercest calvary battles eral Ulysses Grant led the Northern of the Civil War. Above: Gaines’ Mill, a unit of Richmond Na- army in its second major drive against tional Battlefield Park, still sees its share of action today. Above: The Watt house stands as the centerpiece to The 5th New York Zouaves performing bayonet drill. Richmond. Maneuvering through upper the 1862 battle of Gaines’ Mill. D A O R Y A B N HISTORIC VIRGINIA E E R G HANOVERCOUNTY B E N G A Y L E R Beaverdam O A Depot D T E M A N Beaverdam Depot Hanover County Polegreen Church Civil War Sites R O A D Situated along the Virginia Central Railroad, the depot Courthouse Complex This site was the center of the struggle for religious Hanover County has many sites associated with the was destroyed by Union cavalry raiders early in the The historic courthouse (c.1735) along with the and civil liberty in the middle of the 18th century in Civil War. Most of the major battlefields can be found Civil War. It was quickly rebuilt, but was destroyed Virginia. The Hanover dissenters, under the leadership by following two driving trails established by Virginia’s BEAVER DAM tavern, and early 19th century jail and clerk’s office, BEAVERSCHOOL ROAD and reconstructed several more times during the war.
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