The Polegreen Church Site contains undisturbed archaeological remains of the Colonial and 19th century Polegreen Church buildings and landscape. In addition, there are well-preserved remains of Civil War earthworks and evidence of Civil War occupation. These appear to date to the Battle of Totopotomoy and Bethesda Church, of the Cold Harbor Campaign, which resulted in the destruction of the church. The archaeological remains have provided, and will continue in the future to provide considerable information useful for interpreting the history of the site, particularly in the crucial period of the formation of Samuel Morris' dissident meeting and the founding of the Hanover Presbytery by Davies.

The Polegreen reading house of the 1740s and the church of the 1750s are the home base from which Samuel Morris and Samuel Davies carried the widespread social and spiritual movement of the Great Awakening throughout much of the South. - L Daniel Mour, NRHP, 11 July 1991

This is the very meeting house [Samuel Davies] used to make reverberate with the awful truths of God's word, which were quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, becoming a discerner of the thoughts and interests of the hearts of his crowded assemblies. I am now visiting the very cradle of Presbyterianism in Virginia and the Southern States. Here once stood the reading house of Samuel Morris, and this is the spot, which has echoed with the commanding tones of a Robinson, the Tennants, a Roan, and the Blairs. This is the very house where Davies delivered his thrilling and powerful sermons, which bore all before them ... What a diminuative [sic] creature did I feel this day, when entering the church, and walking up the aisle, and casting my eyes up to the pulpit, where I was about to enter, I saw SD in large capitals, drawn on the wall, immediately back of the pulpit where Davies used to stand....

The church was destroyed during the Battle of Totopotomoy and Bethesda Church, on 1 June 1864.

A sudden volley of musketry from our skirmishers warned us that the time for amusement had passed and the moment for work had arrived - on, on the blue line comes, like a wave from the heaving ocean it sweeps with resistless force. But there is a barrier to stem that swelling tide, a rugged rock to roll back that seething stream, a [Gen D H] Hill to climb, a [Gen Wm] Heth to pass, and forth from the Confederate lines dart a stream of fire from the brazen- mouthed Napoleans, all charged with murderous grape.

And as the sound of men's voices rose above the din and confusion of ensanguined strife a stream of fire rises from the roof of that old time- honored house of worship, the church of my ancestors, the church of Samuel Davies - Pole Green, perhaps the oldest Presbyterian Church in Virginia - set on fire by a shot from my own gun.

My thoughts, even mid the din and confusion of battle, flew backward to childhood's bright and sunny days - aye, to days of merry boyhood, and I remembered that in Pole Green my own father received his Christian name; that there my ancestors had worshipped the true God, and that for many, many years it had been connected with the dearest annals of the Presbyterian Church - now it was passing away in the red glare of war.

As those flames flickered and glared and cast their lurid lights full into the faces of those Southrons [sic] struggling for all most dear to men, a new, a stronger spirit of endurance seemed given them, and ere the mouldering embers were shedding their dying halo, the enemy were driven back, and victory, once more, was ours.