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Truro Parish was established in Virginia's Northern Neck in 1732 from Hamilton Parish, and it extended along the Potomac from the mouth of the Occoquan to the Blue Ridge, including what are now the Episcopal parishes of Johns, Upper Truro, McGill, and a part of Meade. From 1742 to 1748, the boundaries of Truro Parish coincided with those of newly established Fairfax County.

The work at hand, a history of Truro Parish, was compiled by Reverend Philip Slaughter from the parish vestry book, a document discovered by Dr. Slaughter and one so scarce as to have eluded the researches of Bishop Meade, the foremost historian of the Episcopal Church in Virginia. Slaughter's coverage is strongest from 1732 to 1785, and it ranges from the establishment and changing contours of the parish, to the history of individual churches (such as Payne's Church, Pohick, and Zion), to the composition of the parish vestry (which, by the way, numbered such Virginia luminaries as George Washington, George Mason, and George Fairfax), to church accounts and levies, and so on. To the history itself Mr. Goodwin has appended a number of important genealogical gems, namely, a complete listing of Truro vestrymen, church wardens, and other officials; a list of several hundred Fairfax County voters in 1744; and genealogical and biographical notes of the following vestrymen: Martin Cockburn, William Grayson, Alexander Henderson, George Johnston, Lawrence Lewis, Cleon Moore, Peter Wagener, and Lund Washington.