NOTES FOR CHAPTER I

[1] Albert O. Porter, County Government in Virginia, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1947), p. 13.

[2] A Hornbook of Virginia History, (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1965), p. 64.

[3] Virginia, Laws, 1748, c. 7, revising earlier statutes on courts enacted in 1662 and 1679.

[4] Wilmer Hall (Ed.), Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1945), V. 93.

[5] Industrial and Historical Sketch of Fairfax County, (Fairfax: County Board of County Supervisors, 1907), p. 45.

[6] Northern Neck Grants Book, Liber E, p. 182. William Fairfax was a cousin of the Proprietor, and acted as his agent.

[7] The so-called Truro Parish Partition Map, purporting to lay out boundaries for a division of Truro Parish to create a new parish for the western settlements. See Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XXXVI, 180.

[8] Fairfax County Deed Book, Liber A, No. 2, p. 494.

[9] Fairfax County Deed Book, Liber A, Pt. 1, p. 52, Survey, March 17, 1742.

[10] E. Sprouse (ed), Fairfax County Abstracts: Court Order Books, 1749–1792, citing Order Book, 1749–54, December 26, 1749, p. 49.

[11] Ibid., p. 131. Charles Broadwater was one of the justices.

[12] There was some reason to support this, apparently, for in 1748 the General Assembly reduced the number of court meetings to four per year for these reasons. See Virginia, Laws, 1742, c. 32; Laws, 1748, c. 59; Laws, 1752, c. 7.

[13] Virginia Gazette, reprinted in William & Mary Quarterly, XII, 215.

[14] Cited in Mary G. Powell, The History of Old Alexandria, Virginia from July 13, 1749 to May 24, 1861, (Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1928), p. 35.

[15] Ibid., p. 22.

[16] Jeanne Rust, History of the Town of Fairfax, (Washington: Moore & Moore, 1960), p. 30.

[17] Gay M. Moore, Seaport on the Potomac, (Richmond: Garrett & Massie, 1949), p. 12.

[18] William C. Moore, "Jeremiah Moore: 1746–1815," William & Mary Quarterly, 2d ser., XIII, 18, 21. Tradition also holds that Jeremiah Moore was defended by Patrick Henry, but this has not been verified.

[19] Robert Anderson, "The Administration of Justice in the Counties of Fairfax, and Alexandria and the City of Alexandria", Arlington Historical Magazine, II, No. 1 (October 1961), 19–21.

[20] "Letters of George Mason to Zachariah Johnston", Tyler's Quarterly Review, V (January 1924), 189.

[21] Virginia, Laws, 1797–98, c. 37; Shepherd, Statutes at Large, II, 107.

[22] During the 1780's the court was compelled to leave the original courthouse building for temporary quarters. Harrison, Landmarks, p. 343, states that during this period the County Court met in the Alexandria Town House, located next door, which also housed the Hustings Court. He also states that the Clerk of the County Court set up his offices in a nearby school building. The Alexandria Gazette, November 13, 1878, reported the demolition of an old house on the south side of Duke Street, east of St. Asaph's Street, which it stated had served as the office of the Clerk of Alexandria's Hustings Court and the Fairfax County Court commencing in the spring of 1793.

CHAPTER II

THE PROVIDENCE COURTHOUSE AND ITS RELATED BUILDINGS: 1800–1860

Location and Construction

The resolution of the General Assembly ordering relocation of the courthouse was not specific as to the site on which it would be built. Accordingly, in May 1790, the court appointed a commission to inspect a site near Ravensworth, within a mile of the crossroads at Price's Ordinary, and to negotiate for purchase of a two-acre parcel.[23] The commissioners' report was not favorable to the site, however, and negotiations for other land continued until, in May 1798, a group of commissioners was appointed to inspect a site at Earp's Corner (between a road which later became the Little River Turnpike and the Ox Road), owned by Richard Ratcliffe.[24] The commissioners reported favorably, and Ratcliffe was persuaded to sell four acres to the County for one dollar. A sale was made, and the deed recorded on June 27, 1799.[25]

Work had begun on the new courthouse some six months earlier, as indicated by the following notice appearing in the Columbia Mirror and Alexandria Advertiser:

The Fairfax Court House Commissioners have fixed on Thursday the 28th instant for letting out the erection of the necessary Public Buildings to the lowest bidder. As they have adopted the plan of Mr. Wren, those workmen who mean to attend may have sight of the plan.

Charles Little
David Stuart
William Payne
James Wren
Charles Minor [26]

The successful bidders at this event were John Bogue, a carpenter and builder newly arrived in the United States, and his partner, Mungo Dykes. They completed the construction of the courthouse late in 1799, and on January 27, 1800, the Commissioners reported to the County Court that they had received the "necessary buildings for the holding of the Court", and found them "executed agreeably to the contract".[27]

Within the four-acre courthouse tract, a half-acre was laid off to provide space to build an office for the Clerk of the Court.[28] This original tract did not provide enough ground for the jail yard and other grounds comprising the courthouse compound.[29] Accordingly, in March 1800 the Court ordered William Payne to prepare a new survey of the compound, enlarged to accommodate all of the facilities required by the law. The area of this new survey was ten acres, capable of accommodating courthouse, jail, clerk's office, gallows and pillory, a stable, a storehouse and possibly an ordinary.[30]

The equipping of the courthouse and transfer of the court's records were accomplished by March 1800, so that the Columbia Mirror and Alexandria Advertiser was able to carry a notice its March 29th edition that

The County Court of Fairfax is adjourned from the town of Alexandria to the New Court House, in the Center of the County, where suitors and others who have business are hereby notified to attend on the 3d Monday in April next.

Thus, the first recorded meeting of the court in the new courthouse was on April 21, 1800.[31] Meanwhile, in Alexandria, the Mayor and Council adopted a resolution giving to Peter Wagener the title to the bricks of the old courthouse on Alexandria's market square as indemnity for pulling it down.[32]

Fairfax Courthouse and the Town of Providence

The central location of the new courthouse and the improvement of its accessibility through the construction of several turnpike roads commencing in the early 1800's, led naturally to the growth of a community around the courthouse. In the vicinity of the crossroads a few buildings antedated the courthouse. Earp's store, probably built in the late 1700's, was one such building, as were dwelling houses reputedly built by the Moss family and Thomas Love.[33]

Development of more nearby land was not long delayed. In 1805 the General Assembly authorized establishment of a new town at Earp's store, to be named Providence.[34] The future growth of the town was forecast in a plat laying off a rectangular parcel of land adjacent to the Little River Turnpike into nineteen lots for building.[35]

Settlement during the next few decades was relatively slow. Rizen Willcoxen built a brick tavern across the turnpike from the courthouse.[36] A variety of "mechanics" and merchants opened their workshops and stores to serve the local residents and travellers on the turnpike, and, on the north side of the turnpike, a store was established by a man named Gerard Boiling.[37] Also, a school for girls occupied land across the turnpike from the present Truro Episcopal Church, and, east of the courthouse crossroads, a Frenchman named D'Astre built a distillery and winery and developed a vineyard.[38]

Martin's 1835 Gazetteer of Virginia and the District of Columbia described Fairfax Court House Post Office as follows: "In addition to the ordinary county buildings, some 50 dwelling houses (for the most part frame buildings), 3 mercantile stores, 4 taverns, and one school."[39] The "mechanics" located in the town included boot and shoe makers, saddlers, blacksmiths and tailors. The town's population totalled 200, of which four attorneys and two physicians comprised the professions. Somewhat later, the town's industry was augmented by establishment of the Cooper Carriage Works on the turnpike west of the courthouse.[40]

This growth of services around the seat of the county government was an added inducement for the County's residents to gather in town when court was in session, to trade, transact their business at the courthouse, and exchange the news of the day. By the 1830's the schedule of court days had expanded to include sessions of the County Court (3d Monday each month), the Quarter Sessions (in March, June, August and November), and the Circuit Superior Court (25th of May and October).[41]

At these times the court would sit for several days—as long as necessary—to complete the County's business. A quorum of the total panel of appointed justices was necessary to conduct the court, but this number generally was small enough so that no hardship was suffered by those who had to leave their private concerns. In every third month, the meetings of the court would also be the occasion for convening the successor to the colonial courts of the Quarter Sessions, at which criminal charges not involving capital punishment were tried.

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the sessions of the County Court continued to be the chief feature of life in the town of Providence, or Fairfax Court House, as it frequently was called. When the court was not in session, the regular passage of carriages, wagons, and herds along the Little River Turnpike was the main form of contact which residents had with areas outside the locality. This situation continued even after the coming of the railroads, for when the Orange & Alexandria Railroad was chartered in 1848, its route was laid out several miles south of Providence. Thus, the nearest rail stations for the courthouse community were at Fairfax Station, on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, and at Manassas, where the Manassas Gap Railroad left the Orange & Alexandria and ran to Harrisonburg.[42]

Four acres of Richard Ratcliffe's land near Caleb Earp's Store laid off for the courthouse and other public buildings. Record of Surveys, Section 2, p. 79, 1798. [VIEW LARGER IMAGE]	Ten acres of land surrounding the courthouse laid off for the prison bounds. Record of Surveys, Section 2, p. 93, 1800. [VIEW LARGER IMAGE]
Ten acres of land surrounding the courthouse intended for the prison bounds. Fairfax County Deed Book V-2, p. 208, 1824. [VIEW LARGER IMAGE]	One-half acre, part of the four-acre courthouse lot, laid off for the Clerk of the County and his successors. Record of Surveys, Section 2, p. 115, 1799. [VIEW LARGER IMAGE]