The Preacher, the Heiress, and the Scottish Martyr

When Bethany and I bought White Hall, one of the first pieces of history we were told was that the pastor of Lamb’s Creek Church had been the original owner of the property.

That story immediately caught our attention.

We love old homes. We love history. We love old Virginia. And the idea that White Hall’s earliest story might be tied to a colonial pastor serving in King George County was exactly the kind of thing that sent us digging.

As often happens with old stories, what we were told was not exactly right — but it was not exactly wrong either.

The records led us first to William Rowley Jr., the early King George County landowner whose 1774 will brings White Hall’s early story into much sharper focus. Rowley appears to have been the man living at what he described as “the house and plantation where I now live.”

That house and plantation, based on the research we have gathered, appear to be the early heart of what would become White Hall.

So the pastor was not the first owner.

But then the story took a turn.

When William Rowley Jr. died in 1774, his estate passed through family lines to his niece, Lettice Smith Wishart, and others. Lettice was married to Reverend John Wishart, a Scottish-born minister who had come to Virginia in the years before the American Revolution.

So the old story did contain an important truth.

A pastor connected to Lamb’s Creek Church did become part of White Hall’s story - not as the first owner, but through marriage, inheritance, and family.

And that is where the story became even more fascinating.

Reverend John Wishart was not just a name in a local deed or court record. He was part of a much older Scottish family story. As Bethany and I continued researching, we traced the Wishart line back across the Atlantic to Scotland and eventually to one of the most powerful figures of the early Scottish Reformation: George Wishart.

George Wishart was a Scottish preacher, teacher, Reformer, and martyr.

In the 1500s, long before White Hall stood in colonial Virginia, George Wishart was preaching Reformed doctrine in Scotland at a time when doing so could cost a man his life. He taught from the Scriptures. He distributed the Greek New Testament to his students. He preached not only inside churches, but outdoors - in fields, on hillsides, near the sea, and wherever people would gather to hear.

He was part of that great Reformation struggle to bring the Word of God to the people.

And that came at a cost.

Wishart’s preaching drew opposition from powerful religious authorities. He was eventually arrested, taken to St. Andrews, tried, condemned, and burned at the stake in 1546 under the authority of Cardinal David Beaton.

His story was preserved by John Knox and later remembered in Protestant martyrology, including Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

One of the most moving details in the story is Knox’s connection to him. John Knox, who would later become the great Scottish Reformer, was deeply influenced by George Wishart. At one point, Knox accompanied Wishart with a two-handed sword for protection. But when Wishart knew danger was near, he sent Knox away, telling him to return to his students because “one is sufficient for a sacrifice.”

The two men never met again.

That alone would have made the story powerful.

But then we discovered the part that stopped me cold.

When George Wishart preached in Ayrshire, Scotland, he did so under the protection of Protestant nobles, including the Earl of Cassilis and the Earl of Glencairn.

Cassilis.

That name matters deeply to me.

My own family came from Ayrshire, Scotland. Our family name was once spelled Cassels before my grandfather changed it to Cassell. The older Cassilis/Cassels name is tied to Clan Kennedy, the Earls of Cassilis, Cassilis House, and that same Ayrshire world.

Years ago, Lord Charles Kennedy, the last Earl of Cassilis, told me personally at the Kennedy clan tent at the Stone Mountain Highland Games that the name Cassilis is pronounced “Cassels.” That was the spelling my family carried until my grandfather changed it.

I also convened the Clan Kennedy tent at the Virginia Scottish Games for years, and I have traced my own Cassels/Cassell line back to the first Cassels who came from Ayrshire Scotland to America.

So imagine what it felt like when Bethany and I, standing here at White Hall in Virginia, traced one of White Hall’s historic owners back to the Wishart family - and then found the Wishart story intertwined with the Cassilis/Kennedy world of Ayrshire in the 1500s.

The connection was separated by an ocean.

It was separated by more than two centuries.

But there it was.

The family story of a historic White Hall owner and my own family story had crossed paths centuries earlier in Scotland, during one of the great struggles of the Reformation: the effort to get the Word of God into the hands of ordinary people.

That was one of the most emotional discoveries we have made in researching White Hall.

Because suddenly, this was not just a property story.

It was not just about old deeds, old wills, old names, or old buildings.

It was about faith.

It was about family.

It was about courage.

It was about providence.

And it was about the strange and wonderful way history can reach across centuries, cross an ocean, and meet you right where you are standing.

When we first heard that a pastor connected to Lamb’s Creek Church had owned White Hall, we thought we were chasing a simple local history lead.

Instead, that lead took us from King George County, Virginia, back to Ayrshire, Scotland; from colonial inheritance records back to Reformation preaching fields; from White Hall’s old brick walls back to a martyr whose life helped shape the faith of a nation.

That is one of the reasons this place means so much to us.

White Hall’s story is not small.

It is local, yes. It is King George County history. It is Virginia history. It is family history.

But sometimes, if you follow the thread far enough, a local story becomes much larger than you ever expected.

And sometimes, an old house does more than preserve the past.

Sometimes, it hands you back a piece of your own.

If your family has a memory, photograph, document, keepsake, or story connected to White Hall, we would love to hear it. These stories are part of the life of this place, and we would be honored to help preserve them.

J&B