Built of southern yellow pine cut from the property in 1729–30, it is the oldest frame house of worship still in use in Virginia.
[3] Slash Church was built under the direction of Edward Chambers and Thomas Pinchbeck in 1729, five years after the absentee minister (who remained in England but hired a curate to serve Hanover County, Virginia boundaries declared 1720), informed the bishop of London that the parish was 60 miles long and twelve wide and served 1200 families by means of four churches (the priest alternating between them on the various Sundays of the month).
The predecessor building (sometimes known as the "Mechumps Creek Chapel"), built circa 1702, was about a mile and a half north of this structure.
George Whitfield, founding Methodist Francis Asbury, Virginia Baptist Reuben Ford and Disciples of Christ founder Alexander Campbell are believed to have preached at the church during their various missionary tours.
However, Patrick Henry's mother was a dissenter, and he is known to have attended Polegreen Church (a Presbyterian or freethinking meetinghouse) nearby.
[6] During the American Civil War, on May 26–27, 1862, Confederate Brigadier General Lawrence O'Bryan Branch (a former U.S. Representative from North Carolina who would die six months later at the Battle of Antietam)[7] used it as his headquarters with 4500 soldiers (and later as a hospital, together with three local homes).
It was built from timber felled on the property – Southern Yellow pine usually 120 feet tall – and fastened mostly with wooden pegs.
Additional structures: a Sunday School building with a bathroom was built to resemble the church and connected by a passageway from an exterior door already in place.
In the 1970s, a fellowship hall and more Sunday school space was erected across the parking lot of brick to serve the congregation's needs.
[1] In 1998, a historical highway marker – E105 – was located at the corner of and intersection that has 4 names: Peakes, Ashcake, Sliding Hill and Mt.