238 SPOFFORD 



pie who refused to have their children baptized were fined two 

 thousand pounds^of tobacco. Any master of a ship who brought 

 in a Quaker was fined five thousand pounds of tobacco. George 

 Wilson, a Quaker preacher, writes in 1662, "from that dirty 

 dungeon in Jamestown " where he was imprisoned for his be- 

 lief. In 1723, blasphemy was punished by boring through the 

 tongue which had offended. In 1756 every man was taxed forty 

 pounds of tobacco annually for the benefit of the clergy, and 

 one hundred percent was added to all taxes to be paid by any 

 Catholic. In 1662 Quakers were fined twenty pounds for ab- 

 senting themselves from church, and no non-conformist could 

 teach religion under pain of banishment. Most of these in- 

 famous laws survived until Thomas Jefferson's Virginia ' Act 

 for establishing religious freedom,' passed in 1785, abolished 

 the last relic of the barbarism of the dark ages. 



DISTRICT OF COLUxMBIA. 



In more modern days, church observances appear to have 

 been general, though not, as formerly, compulsory. In George- 

 town, which was founded in 175 1, a Presbyterian church was 

 built in 1792, and enlarged by subscription in 1802, when Presi- 

 dent Jefferson contributed seventy-five dollars to that object. 

 In 1792 the first Catholic church in Georgetown (now Trinity 

 Church) was founded. The first Presbyterian church in Wash- 

 ington was founded as early as 1795, with Rev. John Brecken- 

 ridge as pastor. It first met in a carpenter shop, used for build- 

 ing the President's house. As illustrating the liberal tendency 

 of the time, it is recorded that at Georgetown the Bridge Street 

 Presbyterian Church was occupied together by Baptists, Metho- 

 dists and Episcopalians, who celebrated the communion service 

 along with the Presbyterians. 



From the earliest Washington newspaper, published from 

 1796 to 1798, the 'Washington Gazette,' of which the only 

 known file is preserved in the Library of Congress, one learns 

 curious particulars of the beginning of things in this District a 

 century ago. A nail factory was started in 1796 at Greenleaf's 

 Point, and a hat factory is advertised as an auspicious novelty. 



