George Washington attended Services here, the sign says as you walk along the path to St. John’s Episcopal Church, also called Broad Creek Church. This year is the church’s 325th anniversary. In 1692, the Church of England established thirty parishes in the strongly Catholic colony of Maryland. The Broad Creek Church was part of a parish called Piscataway (after the Piscataway Tribe) or King George. The boundaries of the parish extended from Mattawoman Creek into Western Pennsylvania including the area that is now the District of Columbia. St. John’s is now part of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and is considered a “mother church” of both the Episcopal and Anglican faiths in the United States.
While the current building is not the original log structure, the planning process for its construction can be seen in advertisements in the Maryland Gazette. The following was published on 14 March 1765.
St. John’s Church, at Broad Creek, Prince George’s County, is to be enlarged. Bids are asked for.
Thomas Cleland got the job and permission to start a completely new building. It was completed in 1768.
As you arrive at the church today it seems strange that the entrance faces away from the road. The current Rector, Rev. Sarah D. Odderstol, explains that many attendees (and likely George Washington) arrived at the church by boat before Broad Creek silted up. While there isn’t documentary evidence George Washington attended services at St. John’s, there is, as the sign says, “credible evidence and honest tradition” is that he was there periodically. We know from Washington’s diaries that he visited friends on the Maryland side of the Potomac including the Digges family of Warburton Manor and the Calverts at Mount Airy. The Addison family of Oxon Hill also had connections to George Washington. Henry Addision was Rector of St. Johns church from 1742-1789, although he was exiled to England during the Revolutionary War. Henry’s nephew, Walter Dulany Addision, followed him as Rector, serving from 1801-1809. He dined with a few others at Mount Vernon on May 31, 1798, and was one of four clergymen who spoke at Washington’s funeral in 1799.
Walter Dulany Addision is now interred at St. John’s Church along with 36 other family members whose remains were moved in August 2017 from the Addison Family cemetery. The old burial ground overlooked the Potomac on a hill which now is the location of the MGM Casino. The graveyard at St. John’s has a collection of very old and modern burials. Many of the markers are worn and broken. William H. Snowden, who resided across the Potomac in the second half of the 19th century described the state of the cemetery then.
“Over most of the graves is a wilderness of tangled vines….with inscriptions worn and hard to decipher.”
St. John’s church members have been celebrating the 325th anniversary with a series of lectures. Dr. Luke Pecararo, the Director of Archaeology at the Mount Vernon Estate, will be delivering the final installment, “George Washington’s Maryland” on Sunday, April 15 at 3 p.m.
