Mr. W. W. Biggs
In 1827 Bishop Meade visited this church and the description of it in his book "Old Families and Churches of Virginia" will be of interest.
"The exercises of the Seminary being over, I next directed my steps to the Falls Church, so called from its vicinity to one of the falls on the Potomac River. It is about eight miles from Alexandria, and the same from Georgetown. It is a large oblong building, and like that near Mount Vernon, has two rows of windows, being doubtless designed for galleries all around, though none were ever put there. It was deserted as a house of worship by Episcopalians about forty years ago. About that period, for the first, and it is believed for the last time, it was visited by Bishop Madison. Since then it has been used by any who were disposed to occupy it as a place of worship, and the doors and windows being open, itself standing on the common highway, it has been entered at pleasure by travellers on the road and animals of every kind. Some years since, the attention of the professors of our Seminary, and of some of the students was drawn towards it, and occasional services performed there. This led to its partial repair."
Mr. C. C. Walters
Bishop Meade in this account of his visit to the old church states that he visited the same day an interesting school for young ladies at Capt. Henry Fairfax's where he delivered an address to the students. This school was located near Fairfax Court House. Mrs. Chichester, widow of the late Major John H. Chichester and a communicant at the present time of Falls Church, was a pupil of this seminary before the death of Capt. Fairfax, and recalls the incidents connected with his death in the Mexican War and his burial near the old church door 57 years ago.
From the time Bishop Meade preached in the old church in 1827 to the beginning of the war of 1861 much that might be of interest is lost with the records of the Parish.
The damage to the church by soldiers during the civil war was later repaired at the expense of the United States Government at a cost of about $1,300. None of its ancient furniture has been preserved, the gray stone urn-shaped baptismal font alone remaining.