Among the first Justices of the Peace to serve in the new Court House after April of 1800 were James Coleman, David Stuart, Charles Little, William Stanhope, Richard Bland Lee, Robert F. Hooe, William Payne, Richard Ratcliffe, William Deneale, Humphrey Peake, Richard W. Poeh, Hancock Lee, William Gunnell, Richard M. Scott, Francy Adams, James Wiley, Augustine I. Smith, and James Waugh. These men formed a committee that took turns serving as Justices of the Peace. They were known as Gentlemen Justices and were appointed and commissioned by the governor until 1851.
In 1843 an agricultural journal was published at the Fairfax County seat. It was called the "Farmer's Intelligencer" and was edited and published by J. D. Hitt. The first issue which appeared on October 21, 1843, showed agitation for a revision of the Virginia constitution in advocating a more economical and simplified court procedure. It may or may not have been indicative of general feelings at the time, but from 1851 until 1870 Justices were elected by the voters of the County. Among these were Silas Burke, John B. Hunter, James Hunter, W. W. Ellzey, Minnan Burke, Ira Williams, M. R. Selecman, William W. Ball, John Millan, Nelson Conrad, T. M. Ford, David Fitzhugh, S. T. Stuart and Elcon Jones.
From 1870 to 1902 the County Court was presided over by a single judge elected by the state's legislature. During that time Thomas E. Carper, Richard Coleman, J. R. Taylor, J. F. Mayhugh and John D. Cross were among those who served. Governor Yeardley's order was abolished in 1902 by a constitutional convention and by 1904 the circuit courts took over the former work of the county courts. Their decline was brought about because they had become the symbol of opposition to a centralized government. Thomas Jefferson said, "the justices of the inferior courts are self-chosen, are for life, and perpetuate their own body in succession forever, so that a faction once possessing themselves of the bench of a county, can never be broken up...."
John Marshall said "there is no part of America where less disquiet and less ill feeling between man and man is to be found than in this commonwealth, and I believe most firmly that this state of things is mainly to be ascribed to the practical operation of our county courts".
William Moss served as Clerk of the Court from 1801 to 1833. From 1833 until 1887 F. D. Richardson, Thomas Moss, Alfred Moss, S. M. Ball, H. T. Brooks, W. B. Gooding, William M. Fitzhugh, D. F. Dulaney, and F. W. Richardson served as Clerks. F. D. Richardson who was born in 1800 and entered the Clerk's Office under William Moss in 1826 was either Clerk, Deputy Clerk or Assistant Clerk to the date of his death on October 13, 1880, a period of 50 years. His son, F. W. Richardson, born Dec. 16, 1853, went into the Clerk's Office when he was 18 years old (1871) and served as Deputy and Assistant Clerk until the death of his father in 1880, when he was elected Clerk of the County and Circuit Courts.
It is said that Ripley wrote in "Believe It or Not" that "'Uncle Tude' (F. W. Richardson) and his father had been Clerks of the Fairfax Courts continuously for one hundred and five years".
