VIII. DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOWN
As the court house drew men to this area and the population increased, a school for girls was established on the property west of Truro Episcopal Church. Known as Coomb's Cottage, it was a finishing school for young girls and boasted a roster of approximately one hundred young ladies from both the north and the south.
The school was built and established by Dr. and Mrs. Baker, who were English. In addition to the main house (a white frame building west of the church), there were a number of other buildings. Two of these are located across Route 236 from the Church and are still standing today. One is a professional building, the other a private home. They were moved to their present location by Judge Love when he bought the original school property. (The school closed down during the Civil War and was never re-opened).
The present Truro Episcopal Rectory had been built as a home by Judge Love's father, Thomas R. Love, who later sold it to Dr. William Gunnell and built his home in the large grove of trees on the Layton Hall property, near the site of the present town hall. "Dunleith", as the large brick home was called, was destroyed by Union forces and replaced by an ordinary frame house after the war.
The Cooper Carriage house was built during this time by a Mr. Cooper who had come to Fairfax from the North. Mr. Cooper was a highly respected citizen and a very gallant Confederate soldier. He was wounded seven times. Cooper Carriage House is located east of the professional building which was a part of Coomb's Cottage.
Another house built before the Civil War was the home of Judge Henry W. Thomas which stood on the site now occupied by the large, pillared, grey stucco house belonging to Mrs. John Barbour. This house served as headquarters for the Union officers and afterwards as a hospital.
The old cedar posts on the porch of the frame part of this house were the original posts that held the gallery in the old court house. When some remodeling of the court house was done, Judge Thomas bought the posts. They were later removed to a white frame house which served as a tenement house for the Barbour estate. This house is still standing today and the porch roof is sustained by tapering posts, which are more delicate and slender than ones usually found on outside porches.
Also built during this era was the D'Astre place, which is the present home of Mr. A. B. McClure. This home was owned by a Frenchman who had the reputation for making wonderful wines. The vineyard of Niagaras, Delawares, Concords bear out the tribute. The runway from the cellar to the highway where the barrels were loaded is evidenced today by a road leading to a log house near the grape arbors. The tenement house, now owned by Mrs. Douglas Murray, boasts a concealed attic room, hidden behind a closet. Here Confederate soldiers picked off the Union troops as they marched past. The house was raided many times by Union troops but still managed to keep its secret.
Beyond the D'Astre place was the home of Charles Broadwater, which has recently been torn down for widening of The Little River Turnpike. When torn down, the well house revealed numerous musket balls from the war. The house itself was a study in architectural beaming. Each wall header was constructed of large hand-hewn oak timbers. Each timber had hand-hewn slots which received studs secured by wooden pegs.
The large colonial brick house at the corner of Sager Avenue and University Drive was possibly built during this era too. The land had been part of the Ratcliffe division, designated as Lot 26, and had passed from the Moss family to the Jackson family. Later, a Mr. Harry Fitzhugh, who taught school here, bought it and eventually sold it to Mr. F. W. Richardson.
The Draper house at the corner of Main and Route 237 was built in 1827 by Dr. S. Draper who occupied it until 1842, at which time a Mr. William Chapman bought it. The wide upstairs portico and two immense chimneys at each end of the brick house were characteristic of the houses built at that time.
The large white frame house belonging now to Mrs. Fairfax Shield McCandlish, Sr., and being located across from the Fairfax Post Office was built before 1839 and was owned and occupied by the Conrad family. They called it "Rose Bower". A son, Thomas Nelson Conrad, served as a Captain in the Confederate Army and at one time as a Rebel Scout. In 1859 it was bought by a Mr. Thomas Murray who later rented it to a lawyer by the name of Thomas Moore. Mr. Moore had married one of the young ladies who attended Coomb's Cottage—a Miss Hannah Morris from Oswego County, New York. Mr. Moore was to have the distinction of carrying the court records to Warrenton, when the war clouds gathered around Fairfax.
By 1843 Zion Church was founded under the leadership of the Reverend Richard Templeton Brown. He writes: "On the 8th of February last we had the pleasure of a new congregation at this very destitute place and prompt measures were adopted for the immediate erection of a plain and substantial church. The edifice has been commenced, and, if not entirely finished, will be used during the present year. Some of the most influential citizens of the place and neighborhood are interested in the work; the ladies also are zealously engaged; and we trust that, by the blessing of God, the Church at this place will exert a wide and purifying influence."
At that time there were five communicants and twelve families regularly connected with the church. Services were first held at the court house, but when for some reason it was forbidden, Mrs. Daniel Rumsey of "Mount Vineyard"; a Baptist lady, saying that she "could not see the Ark of the Lord refused shelter", offered her parlor in which the congregation met until the church was completed. She was the mother of Mr. William T. Rumsey, who gave the lot for the church and was one of its first vestrymen.
The church was completed and consecrated by Right Rev. William Meade, D. D. on June 28th, 1845, under the name of Zion Church.
In 1861, when Fairfax became involved in war, the church became a storehouse for munitions. It soon thereafter rapidly deteriorated and was finally torn down by Union soldiers to provide material for their winter quarters on a neighboring hillside.
In the meantime, the Methodists, it is thought, probably organized in this vicinity around 1800. The Rev. Melvin Steadman thinks they may have worshipped at Payne's church for a while or possibly at the Moss family's home. The first structure built by them, according to local tradition, was a log cabin which was built around 1822. By 1843 a more elaborate frame building had been built on land given by a Mr. Bleeker Canfield. Records show that the membership of the Fairfax Circuit fluctuated between a high of 604 in 1819 to a low of 332 in 1839. The black proportion usually made up a third of the total, sometimes more.
Around 1850 the church members found their sympathies divided and two churches were formed—a southern congregation and a northern congregation. The latter worshipped in a structure near the intersection of Routes 236 and 237 known as Ryland Chapel. This congregation existed until the 1890's.
The Southern church is first recorded in 1850 with 93 members. It reached a peak of 212 in 1852, dropped in 1854 and fluctuated around 125 until the war.
In 1846 the era of rail-roading began. Nurtured by Virginia State legislation, the Manassas Gap railroad was chartered in 1849. It was to run through the Town of Fairfax as shown by the plat below. Deep embankments where the railroad bed was laid can still be sighted today—one particular spot in the town lies east of the old Farr cottage (now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Dennis) on Route 237. These trenches served as embankments for various battles in this area but other than that have seen no service due to destruction by both sides during the Civil War.
Forerunner of the fabulous county fairs which were held for years at the county seat was the first fair held on October 16th and 17th, 1852, at the court house. It was sponsored by the Fairfax Agricultural Society. The officers of this organization were Richard M. C. Throckmorton, President; H. C. Williams, First Vice-President; W. W. Ball, Second Vice-President; Levi Burke, Third Vice-President; S. T. Stuart, Corresponding Secretary and F. D. Richardson, Recording Secretary and Treasurer.
Among the exhibitors who were awarded prizes were William Swink, Ruben Kelsey, Dr. W. P. Gunnell, Charles Kirby, Charles Sutton, James P. Machen, R. M. C. Throckmorton, Mrs. W. T. Rumsey, Mrs. E. V. Richardson, Mrs. Mildred Ratcliffe. Mr. Joseph Williams of "Ash Grove" exhibited corn of "enormous dimensions". The stalks measured 16 ft. 9 inches and the distance to the first ear was twelve feet six inches and to the second ear thirteen feet one inch.
It was also the custom at this time to send out notices of funerals. A typical notice was published in a local newspaper as follows:
"Yourself and family are respectfully invited to attend the Funeral of John R. Richardson from the Presbyterian Church to the Public Cemetery, this afternoon at 3:00 o'clock. Funeral services by Rev. John Leighton.
Palmyra, Friday, June 8, 1855"
By 1859 Providence had taken the name of "Fairfax" when Culpeper abandoned it, and being located in a border county was destined to be the scene of the very first skirmish of the Civil War.
Preceding this skirmish, the citizens of the Town of Fairfax had debated and appraised the act of seceding from the Union. When on April 17, 1861, the convention in Richmond adopted "The Ordinance of Secession" to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution, the people in Fairfax came forth to vote.
In those days votes were taken orally and penned by the Clerk of the Court. One page of the voting on secession is still filed among the records of the Clerk of the Court of Fairfax County.
The picture below shows 21 out of 22 people in Fairfax voting in favor of secession. The one dissenter, (on this particular page), Henry T. Brooks, was later appointed Military Clerk of the Court of the County of Fairfax, when Union forces took over the Town.
