George Whitefield preached at Bruton Parish Church at Williamsburg during the First Great Awakening, and his sermons were published, local mason Samuel Morris built a reading room or log cabin near Mechanicsville in rural Hanover County.

[4] Pennsylvania Presbyterian missionary Samuel Davies, one of the first non-Anglican ministers licensed in Virginia, evangelized in Hanover County and used this as his base from 1743 to 1759.

During the American Civil War, battle lines formed on opposite sides of Totopotomoy creek during the 1864 Overland Campaign as the Union army advanced on Richmond.

A Confederate artillery shell fired to dislodge Union sharpshooters by a man whose father had been baptized at Polegreen hit the wooden building, which burned to the ground.

[5][6] An open-air design of steel beams painted white to show the historic structure's former dimensions has been erected at the site, along with a visitor center and signage concerning religious persecution and freedom in Western civilization.