Although St. William of York was established as an independent parish in 1971, the origins of the Catholic community in Stafford go back more than three centuries. The area around Aquia Harbor just north of the present church building was the site of the settlements of the first Catholic families in Virginia who came to the region around 1650. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Brents, the leading Catholic family of Virginia during colonial times, farmed several thousand acres and are buried not far from the parish in a cemetery now owned by the Arlington diocese. Despite the importance of the Brent family, the Catholic community in the area was never large, and as late as 1925 priests traveling up from Fredericksburg celebrated Mass in the homes of private families since the community was too small to maintain a regular church.