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]
[Illustration: 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.]
[Illustration: Ten acres of land surrounding the courthouse laid off
for the prison bounds. Record of Surveys, Section 2, p. 93, 1800.]
[Illustration: Ten acres of land surrounding the courthouse intended
for the prison bounds. Fairfax County Deed Book V-2, p. 208, 1824.]
[Illustration: 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.]
NOTES FOR CHAPTER II
[23] Fairfax County Court Order Book, 1789-1791, p. 93.
[24] _Ibid._, pp. 189-191.
[25] Fairfax County Deed Book B-2, pp. 373-377.
[26] _Columbia Mirror & Alexandria Advertiser_, June 19, 1798. John
Bogue had arrived in the United States with his family in 1795. On
June 20, 1795, the _Alexandria Gazette_ published his signed statement
thanking the captain of the ship "Two Sisters" for a good voyage. In
the August 1, 1795 issue of the _Gazette_, he advertised as a joiner
and cabinet maker on Princess Street near Hepburn's Wharf, "hoping to
succeed as his abilities shall preserve him deserving."
[27] Fairfax County Deed Book, B-2, p. 503.
[28] Fairfax County Record of Surveys, 1742-1850, p. 115.
[29] Fairfax County Deed Book, B-2, p. 503.
[30] Interview with former Clerk of Courts, Thomas Chapman of Fairfax,
Virginia, February 13, 1970.
[31] One of the items to come before the court at this session
involved winding up the county's contract with John Bogue and Mungo
Dykes. The Court's Clerk, Robert Moss, was summoned to appear and show
cause why he had not paid the contractors in conformance with the
commissioners' report accepting the buildings. Moss produced a receipt
for this payment, signed by Mr. Bogue's agent, who apparently had not
passed it along to his principal. Fairfax County Court Order Book,
1799-1800, p. 509.
[32] Powell, _Old Alexandria_, p. 38.
[33] Elizabeth Burke, "Our Heritage: A History of Fairfax County",
_Yearbook of the Historical Society of Fairfax County_, 1956-7, 5:4.
[34] _Ibid._, 32.
[35] Fairfax County Deed Book, M-2, p. 56.
[36] Rust, _Town of Fairfax_, p. 3.
[37] Gerard Bolling was the father-in-law of Richard Ratcliffe who had
provided the four-acre tract on which the courthouse had been built.
Rust, _Fairfax_, p. 31.
[38] _Ibid._
[39] Joseph Martin, _Gazetteer of Virginia and the District of
Columbia_, (Charlottesville, 1835), p. 168. The name "Providence"
apparently was less favored than the traditional Virginia style of
referring to the seat of county government.
[40] Rust, _Fairfax_, p. 37.
[41] Martin, _Gazetteer_, pp. 168-169.
[42] Marshall Andrews, "A History of Railroads in Fairfax County",
_Yearbook of the Historical Society of Fairfax County_, III (1954),
30-31.