Twenty-four-year-old English traveler Nicholas Cresswell was living in Alexandria as resistance to British rule intensified. Only days earlier, he had listened to the resolves of the Continental Congress and watched members of Alexandria’s Independent Company shoot at an effigy of Lord North before carrying it into town and burning it. Privately loyal to the Crown, Cresswell believed that the “seeds of rebellion” had already taken deep root in the colonies.
On Sunday, November 6, Cresswell attended a Presbyterian service and recorded one of the most memorable descriptions of Revolutionary-era Alexandria:
“Went to a Presbyterian meeting. These are a set of rebellious scoundrels, nothing but political discourses instead of Religious Lectures.”
A week later, he attended another service but declared that he would not return to hear any more “Political Sermons.”
Cresswell’s entry reveals how closely religion and politics had become intertwined on the eve of the American Revolution. Because Alexandria’s Presbyterian Meeting House had not yet been completed, his diary identifies only a “Presbyterian meeting” and does not establish where the congregation gathered that Sunday. Nevertheless, his sharp criticism captures the congregation’s emerging reputation for patriotism before construction of its permanent sanctuary during 1775.
Today, more than forty Revolutionary War patriots rest in the Meeting House burial ground. Cresswell’s intended insult now provides the title for the “Rebellious Scoundrels” walking tour, which explores the sanctuary and burial ground through the lives of Alexandria’s Revolutionary generation.