Chapter 3

Broad Street, East 100 block (Mankin's Store) 34 100 block (Columbia Baptist Church) 98 120 (J.B. Gould) 9 133 (S. Luttrell) 74 155 (S.S. Luttrell) 86 200 (M.H. Brinkerhoff) 80 209 (G.B. Ives) 82 225 (Presbyterian Church) 5 304 (N. Lynch) 83 312 (The Misses Birch) 109 400 (A.V. Piggott) 81 424 (W.B. Wright) 77 513 (Dulin Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (South)) 99 500 block (C.H. Buxton) 29 1000 block (J.D. Payne) 68

Broad Street, West 100 block (M.E. Church) 13 100 block (J.W. Brown) 14 100 block (O.H. Billingsley) 57 100 block (G.W. Mankin) 28 200 block (C.A. Mankin) 36 260 (G.B. Fadeley) 22 300 block (Virginia Training School, Miss M. Gundry, Principal) 8 923 (A.E. Rowell) 85 934 (Ellison, W.M.) 6

Columbia Street, East on 15th Road (L.E. Gott) 70 109 (G.F. Rollins) 32 114 (W.H. Nowlan) 10 117 (W.A. Ball) 39 211 (E. Garner) 16 219 (J.W. Garner) 46

Columbia Street, West 100 block (R.J. Yates) 71

Fairfax Street, East 115 (The Falls Church) 33, 62 100 block (J.B. Hodgkin) 25

Fulton Street 610 (H.C. Birge) 95

Great Falls Street and Maple Avenue (G. Stambaugh) 61

Great Falls Street 110 (A. Rhodes) 49 116 (J.W. Seay) 78 210 (B.C. Merrifield) 90 300 (G.L. Erwin) 15 400 (J.L. Auchmoody) 73 414 (A. Eells) 37

Jefferson Street, East 103 (J.H. Wells) 79 115 (J.T. Hiett) 60 206 (S.A. Cooper) 72 211 (E.C. Hough) 17 212 (H.A. Beach) 110 215 (C.A. Marshall) 63

Lawton Street 203 (The Lawton House) front

Lee Highway 6700 block (W.W. Kingsley) 50 6733 (A.P. Eastman) 31 and West Street (N.F. Graham) 106

Lincoln Avenue 508 (M.E. DePutron) 100

Little Falls Street 200 block (M.G. Sims) 84 200 block (W.W. Biggs) 44

Maple Street, North 316 (A.M. Smith) 59 319 (E.F. Crocker) 27 321 (H. Crocker) 27 and Great Falls (G.F. McInturff) 12 329 (C. Larner) 75

McKinley Street (T.M. Talbott) 41

Oak Street, South 114 (The Rectory--Rev. G.S. Somerville) 69 116 (T. Hillier) 55

Park Avenue 312 (J.S. Riley) 56 900 (C.C. Walters) 45 905 (St. James Roman Catholic Church) 102

Roosevelt Street Oakwood Cemetery 87

Spring Street (A.O. Von Herbulis) 58

Underwood Street (G.G. Crossman) 7

Walden Court 502 (G.W. Cassilear) 101

Washington Blvd., Arlington near Lee Hwy. (R.C.L. Moncure) 91 east of Lee Hwy. (F.M. Thompson) 97 (H.R. Thompson) 97 at Roosevelt (W.H. Barksdale) 76 at Roosevelt (H.A. Fellows) 51 6831 (G.W. Poole) 11 6839 (E.T. Fenwick) 4 6857 (C.A. Stewart) 325 at 25th Street (P. Dodge) 38

Washington Street, North 100 block (Mankin Pharmacy) 23 100 block (E.J. Northrup) 112 200 block (The Inn) 96 222 (Congregational Church) 111 223 (M.S. Hopkins) 18 282 (G.A.L. Merrifield) 52 305 (T.C. Quick) 66 306 (G.A.L. Merrifield) 53 351 (J.A. Dickinson) 21 353 (G.M. Newell) 92 384 (The Methodist Episcopal Church) 103 at s.e. corner of Columbia St. (E.W. Green) 67 at n.e. corner of Columbia St. (G.W. Hawxhurst) 43 400 block (T.B. Snoddy) 40 421 (C. Crossman) 24

Washington Street, South (V.E. Kerr) 104

West Street, South 409 (M.S. Roberts) 107

Wilson Blvd. and McKinley Street, Arlington (A.M. Lothrop) Front

A Virginia Village

Historical Sketch

of

Falls Church

and the

Old Colonial Church

PRESS OF J. H. NEWELL

FALLS CHURCH, VA.

1904

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY 1

THE TOWN OF FALLS CHURCH 3

THE OLD COLONIAL CHURCH 33

FALLS CHURCH IN THE CIVIL WAR 62

CHURCHES AND SOCIETIES, ETC. 77

PREFACE.

In preparing this little book it has been the aim of the Editor to obtain facts of the early history, as well as to set forth what changes time has wrought in the erstwhile veritable hamlet of years gone by. To this end he has exerted every effort in the examination of records, that authentic data only, in describing the old church and village, may appear in these pages. Aside from the descendants of the old settlers, the heads of many households in the village of Falls Church have left kindred and friends in other sections of the country, and identified themselves heartily in the work of developing and beautifying the natural advantages of the spot they have selected for the building of new homes. It is but natural that interest should be taken in the evidence of their thrift and enterprise, by those whose lives were linked with theirs in times past, as in the town they have helped to build up. The attempt has been to join the past with the present, in reciting incidents of the early days, to show no less the improvements that have come as the years roll on.

The joint work has been done by Messrs. Chas. A. Stewart, Pickering Dodge and George M. Newell, Mr. Stewart having collected, edited and compiled the text, Mr. Dodge the photographic work, and Mr. Newell the printing.

The Editor is indebted for courtesies and assistance to Mr. H. H. Dodge, Superintendent of Mount Vernon, a vestryman of Pohick Church, Mr. H. S. Ryer, stenographer, Mr. F. M. Richardson, Clerk of the Court, Fairfax Co., and Rev. George S. Somerville, Rector of the Falls Church. Valuable information was obtained from Howe's History of Virginia, Snowden's Old Landmarks in Virginia and Maryland, as from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

M. M. O.

A Virginia Village.

Introductory.

Falls Church, while a Virginia village, is thoroughly cosmopolitan. According to a recent census only about fifty per cent. of its inhabitants are natives of Virginia, the rest coming from the various States of the Union or from foreign countries.

Falls Church might properly be called a national village, since its citizens are chiefly employees of the government, and the interests of its eleven hundred people naturally center at the National Capitol.

Every geographical section of the United States has here a representative type of citizen who has chosen this quiet village for a home. For this and other reasons Falls Church is probably the most thoroughly American community in the country. This distinction, if admitted, must come as a natural sequence from its situation as a suburb of the Nation's capital, from the cosmopolitan character of its society, and from the fact that so many of its residents are connected with the Executive Departments as a part of the machinery of representative government.

The village is situated in a county of the Old Dominion rich in events of historic interest. In Colonial days, in the times of the Revolution, as in the days of the civil strife, Fairfax County furnished her quota of illustrious sons. At Gunston Hall on the Potomac dwelt George Mason, author of the Virginia Bill of Rights, pronounced the most remarkable paper of the epoch, and the foundation of the great American assertion of independence as afterward draughted by Jefferson. In Fairfax County lived and died the immortal Washington, and his ashes repose in its soil at his beloved Mount Vernon. During the late civil war every part of its territory was a battle ground and breast-works thrown up by contending armies over a generation ago may still be seen here and there within its borders. At the beginning of our war with Spain twenty-five thousand volunteer soldiers from a dozen States pitched their tents on a favored spot in this ancient county, where they were schooled to proficiency in the art of modern warfare.

The old Episcopal church, from which Falls Church takes its name, still stands as a monument linking colonial days with the present. Around it cluster memories of great events in American history, for past its substantial walls have marched soldiers of all our leading wars since the day Washington guided the lordly Braddock over the road hard by down to the time of our recent war with Spain. The old church has passed through many vicissitudes since Washington worshipped there. It served as a recruiting station for patriots of the Revolution, then abandoned as a house of worship for a long period of years; subsequently it was reopened and throughout the civil war used alternately as a hospital and a stable by the Union Army. To complete the chain of events in this connection soldiers enlisted for the Spanish-American war were encamped near by and pickets of the camp stood guard under the shadow of its walls.

Falls Church thirty years ago was a mere hamlet of, perhaps, a dozen houses. It is to-day the largest town in the county of Fairfax and its population is steadily increasing. Forces are now at work which may eventually make it the largest town in Northern Virginia, with the possible exception of Alexandria. Upon the completion of the new bridges now in course of construction across the Potomac and the improved facilities for reaching Washington by means of steam roads and trolley lines, the tide of suburban home-seekers from the capital city must turn this way, whereby this Virginia village is destined to become a Virginia city which may bind the old mother commonwealth closer than ever before to the Federal City and the National government.

The Town of Falls Church.

Falls Church is an incorporated town of about eleven hundred inhabitants. Endowed by State law with the name of town when a mere hamlet, it is still "the village" to its citizens. It is situated on the Bluemont branch of the Southern Railway 9 miles from Alexandria, and 45 miles from Bluemont at the foot of the Blue Ridge. An electric railway connects it with Georgetown, D. C., 6 miles distant, and it is 13 miles over the Southern Railway to the business center of Washington. Located originally in Fairfax County its growing area has overlapped into the adjoining county of Alexandria, taking within its corporate limits the extreme southwestern part of what was at one time the District of Columbia.

It is essentially a village of homes, nearly all of which are set in ample grounds adorned with rare trees, well-kept lawns, and tasteful shrubbery and hedges. Its fourteen miles of streets are bordered with beautiful maples, and in summer the principal avenues are bowers of living green.

Like the National Capital in its inception, Falls Church is a town of magnificent distances. Within its corporate limits is room for ten thousand people without overcrowding.

At an altitude of 300 feet above Washington, summer days here are pleasant and summer nights cool and sleep-inducing.

The social atmosphere is most refined, and the moral tone of its citizens cannot be surpassed. No saloons have been allowed in Falls Church since its incorporation as a town thirty years ago.

The town has an excellent graded public school with a high class of instructors, besides a number of private schools. Eleven churches, including three for colored people just outside the town limits, afford ample accommodation for all church-goers within a radius of many miles. All the leading religious denominations are represented. The church edifices are most creditable for a town of its size, and two are fine examples of church architecture.

The history of Falls Church begins with the building of the old Episcopal Church from which the place takes its name, but the town itself is of modern growth. By a strange series of coincidences the old church, as well as the town at a later period, has been in touch in various ways with the National Government since Colonial days. Washington was a vestryman and at times attended service here. It served as a recruiting office for patriots of the Revolution. Dolly Madison took the road for Leesburg leading past this church when fleeing from the White House during the panic of the British invasion. Capt. Henry Fairfax went forth with his company of Fairfax volunteers from the Falls Church to the Mexican war and his body, borne home from far Saltillo, found a resting place within its churchyard. Skirmishes between Union and Confederate troops occurred all around its walls, and during the war of '61 it served the purposes of a hospital for Union soldiers. To make the chain of incidents complete, a farm near by was chosen at the outbreak of the Spanish-American war as a training camp for United States volunteer soldiers.

Few events of moment in government affairs can occur without directly affecting some resident of Falls Church, since this little town has its quota among the officers of the army and navy, in the rank and file of the army, and on the forecastle of the man-of-war, to say nothing of a full representation on the rolls of the several executive departments. When the battle ship Maine was blown up in Havana harbor two jackies from Falls Church were on board, fortunately escaping with their lives. After Aguinaldo's capture by General Funston, it was a Falls Church man who commanded the gunboat which conveyed the captive around the Island of Luzon to Manila. The brave General Lawton, killed on the firing line in the Philippine war, had so recently been a citizen of the town that his death was deplored as a personal loss by his former neighbors.

About the middle of the last century there was a large influx of settlers to Fairfax County from Northern New York and the New England States, attracted by the milder climate and the cheaper lands then offered for sale. Among the families who came about that period and settled nearest the old Falls Church were the Baileys, Birches, Barretts, Coes, Ellisons, Iveses, Lounsberrys, Munsons, Osbornes, Ryers and Sherwoods--all familiar names, and many of them or their immediate descendants now prominent residents of this village.

Early in the seventies two government clerks drove over the rough and hilly road from Washington and looked around the little hamlet of a dozen houses scattered along the Leesburg turnpike from the old brick church to the railroad station at West End. They were impressed with its inviting hills as the ideal situation for country residences. The excellent water from unlimited springs, the cool breezes and pleasing prospect from the hilltops overlooking hot and dusty Washington in the distance, persuaded them to make their homes in this ideal place. At that time the railroad facilities to Washington were most unpromising. The coaches were little better than the present freight car caboose, the schedule was unreliable, the trains slow, and a change of cars had to be made at the Alexandria junction. Such drawbacks did not deter these men from carrying out their purpose of locating here. They decided to ride or drive back and forth to their work in the department at Washington. Others soon followed these pioneers, and a settlement of government employees was the result. Many of those who followed the first two pioneers were from New England. They were families for the most part endowed with all those sturdy qualities of integrity, frugality and piety, characteristic of their section, and soon the church of their fathers stood within a stone's throw of the church of the early Virginians.

Since the day our townsmen, Mr. Charles H. Buxton and Prof. W. W. Kinsley, the pioneers of modern Falls Church, first settled here, the increase of population has been slow, but it has been of steady and sterling growth. The conservatism of the land-owners has given less rapid growth than were its tone purely speculative. The population as reported by the United States census for 1890 was 792; the census of 1900 gives the population at 1007, an increase of over 27 per cent. during the ten years. The tax roll for 1903 shows property of taxable value of $420,125, an increase of $149,040 over 1890.

Of all those who followed Messrs. Buxton and Kinsley to Falls Church, who built homes and made the little straggling settlement at the cross-roads the beautiful village it is to-day, space will not permit even a brief mention. But there are a number of well-known citizens still residing here who formed the nucleus of that "department colony" of thirty years ago, and through whose influence in great measure this village has become a settlement of government employees. Most prominent among these settlers of the 70's who are connected with the executive departments in Washington are Messrs. G. A. L. Merrifield and M. S. Roberts of the Pension Bureau, Albert P. Eastman of the War Department and George F. Rollins of the Treasury Department.

The rate of taxation levied by the town government is 60 cents on the hundred dollars, 30 cents of which is for school purposes and 30 cents for all expenses of the corporation. To this must be added the taxes collected by the county of Fairfax, 75 cents on the hundred dollars, making a total tax on property holders in the town of $1.35 on each one hundred dollars of the assessed valuation. Property within the corporation is exempt from county road tax and district school tax. Property in that part of the village lying within Alexandria County is assessed in like manner by the town and the authorities of the latter county. The tax rate for Alexandria County for the year 1903 on the one hundred dollars of assessed valuation of personal and real property was: State tax, 35 cents; county levy, 40 cents, and for court-house purposes, 10 cents--a total of 85 cents chargeable to the property owners of East Falls Church, the section of the village in this county. An additional tax of 50 cents for road purposes and 40 cents for the district school is levied against taxable property in this county outside of East Falls Church.

When scarcely entitled to be designated by the name of village, the little settlement on the Leesburg turnpike known as Falls Church was, by an act of the General Assembly of Virginia, incorporated as a town. The act in question was approved March 30, 1875, and on April 13 following the new town began its career with the following officials duly installed: Mayor, Dr. J. J. Moran; Clerk, H. J. England; Town Sergeant, E. F. Crocker; Councilmen, Dr. J. J. Moran, George B. Ives, J. E. Birch, T. T. Fowler, Isaac Crossman, J. J. Carter, Dr. L. E. Gott.

The act of incorporation was successively amended by the State Legislature in 1879, 1890 and 1894. Sections 1 and 2 of the act of incorporation as amended, approved March 2, 1894, read as follows: