migration to Virginia after the Restoration, brought with them
the determination to organize in America as a Presbyterian
denomination. They were especially strong in the counties of Princess
Anne and Norfolk; and the first Presbyterian congregation in Virginia
was organized in 1692 in that area. It is also of interest to note that
the Reverend Francis Makemie, who organized the first presbytery in
Philadelphia about 1705 and later the first Synod of the Presbyterian
Church in America, lived for many years in Accomac County, Virginia.

There was a Baptist minister in the village of Yorktown during the
decade 1690-1700 but little is known of his work, nor is it known
whether there were then one or more organized Baptist congregations.

The Quakers were the most widely scattered and in numbers probably the
strongest of the three groups. They were especially numerous in Henrico
County and the eastern section of Hanover County and on the Nansemond
river. The Church Attendance Act of 1699 and the Toleration Act of the
English Parliament applied to them as to other dissenters, but they
were still under suspicion as to their loyalty and also because they
continued their early custom of open and violent attacks on the
religion and worship of the orthodox Churches. They gave bitter offense
by their public announcements in time of war between England and France
or between England and Spain that they would give aid and furnish such
supplies as might be needed to any enemy fleet which should come with
hostile intent into the Virginian waters.

While the laws which punished interruption of religious services were
still necessary and were enforced, the adoption of the proviso in the
Virginian Act of 1699 was a real step forward on the way to the
ultimate goal of entire freedom of worship. It made the worship of the
dissenters as truly legal as that of the Established Church, and it
removed from the dissenters the requirement that they attend the
worship of the Anglican Church.

Thomas Story, the noted English Quaker, who wrote and published a
journal of his life and work as a Quaker preacher, gives an interesting
account of his two prolonged visits to Virginia in 1698/99 and in 1705.
In his daily journal for 1705 he comments at every stopping-place, with
manifest pleasure, upon the welcome given him and his friends and the
freedom of public preaching accorded him wherever he went. He was
welcomed and entertained over and again at