On this day in 1660 the “Vestry Law” was adopted in the Colony of Virginia. It, in effect, described how vestries were to be organized throughout the region for the primary purpose of collecting taxes for the support of the officially recognized religion. Members of the vestry were required to take the oath of supremacy to the British King, and to “subscribe to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England.” Additional laws were passed providing tax money for the provision of glebes for the Anglican rectors. A glebe was piece of property of at least two hundred acres with a mansion, a fenced garden and several out buildings. Everyone in the colony was to pay this tax whether they were Anglicans or not.
Baptists and others peacefully fought these Vestry Laws for more than a century, even after Virginia became one of the United States. Finally, in 1799 the legislature agreed that freedom of religion was to be granted to every man’s personal conscience. The final question was what to do with the glebes. It wasn’t until January 12, 1802 that the Baptists pressured the government into agreeing to sell the extensive religious plantations, returning the money to the people of the state.