A History of the Town of Fairfax

by Jeanne Johnson Rust

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.