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.
[Illustration: Mr. E. T. Fenwick.]
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.
[Illustration: Presbyterian Church]
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.
[Illustration: Mr. W. M. Ellison]
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.
[Illustration: Mr. George G. Crossman]
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.
[Illustration: Virginia Training School. Miss M. Gundry, Principal.]
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.
[Illustration: Dr. J. B. Gould]
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.
[Illustration: Mr. W. H. Nowlan]
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:
SECTION 1. So much of the territories in the counties of Fairfax and
Alexandria, together with all the improvements and appurtenances
thereunto belonging, as is contained in the following boundaries,
to-wit: Beginning at the corner of Alexandria and Fairfax counties, on
J. C. DePutron's farm; thence to the corner of J. C. Nicholson and W. S.
Patton, in Mistress Ellen Gordon's line; thence to the corner of Sewell
and L. S. Abbott on the new cut road; thence to the corner of A. A.
Freeman and Mrs. Henry J. England on the Falls Church and Fairfax Court
House road; thence along centre of said road to centre of bridge over
Holmes Run; thence easterly in a straight line to the northwest corner
of the colored Methodist church on the road leading to Annandale;
thence easterly to the crossing of the Alexandria and Georgetown roads
at Taylor's corner; thence along the north line of said Georgetown road
to the corner of T. M. Talbott and Emma Taylor's estate; thence to a pin
oak tree near Dr. L. E. Gott's spring; thence to a stone on the property
of J. A. and Mrs. J. H. C. Brown, formerly the northeast corner of John
Brown's barn; thence to the crossing of Isaac Grossman's and Bowen's
line on the chain bridge road; thence to the place of beginning, is and
shall continue forever to be a body politic and corporate under the name
and style of the town of Falls Church, and shall possess and exercise
the rights and powers conferred on towns by the general laws of this
State and shall be subject to the restrictions and limitations imposed
by said law in so far as the provisions thereof are not in conflict with
the provisions of this act.
[Illustration: Mr. G. W. Poole]
SEC. 2. Be it further enacted. That the government of said town shall be
vested in a council of nine qualified voters, who shall be elected by
ballot on the fourth Thursday in May, eighteen hundred and ninety-four;
three of whom shall hold that office for one year, three for two years
and three for three years respectively, the same to be determined by
lot. The successors of the three whose terms expire each year shall be
elected annually on the fourth Thursday in May and shall hold their
offices for three years, or until their successors are duly elected and
qualified. The terms of office of all councilmen shall begin on the
first day of July of each year succeeding their election. Any person
entitled to vote in the magisterial districts of Falls Church or
Providence, in Fairfax County, or Washington magisterial district in
Alexandria County, and residing in said corporation and duly registered
by the town clerk, shall be entitled to vote at all elections for
councilmen. The town clerk and two members of the council whose terms of
office do not expire with that year, and who shall be designated by the
mayor, shall conduct such election between the hours of one and seven,
post meridian, and shall make return of the same to the mayor who shall
issue certificates, countersigned by the clerk, to those elected. Tie
votes shall be decided by lot, and contests shall be decided by the
council under the law governing contests for the county offices.
[Illustration: Mr. G. F. McInturff]
[Illustration: Mr. M. E. Church]
Section five provides that the council shall annually levy and collect
necessary taxes for roads, streets, school and corporation purposes,
which tax for all purposes shall not exceed sixty cents on one hundred
dollars without the consent of two-thirds of the resident freeholders of
the corporation. An amendment gives the council the privilege of levying
an additional tax of ten cents on the hundred dollars for the purpose of
establishing and maintaining a high school course in Jefferson
Institute, the public school, whenever requested by the town school
board.
Section eight provides that the "town sergeant shall be the executive
officer of the council, and shall have the authority, jurisdiction and
fees of a constable of Fairfax and Alexandria counties within and one
mile beyond the corporate limits. He shall, unless otherwise provided,
be the town treasurer and as such shall collect all taxes, fines and
licenses, and disburse the same upon the warrant of the council, signed
by the mayor and clerk."
[Illustration: Mr. J. W. Brown, Store and Residence]
The same section makes the sergeant overseer of roads and streets,
giving him the same powers as overseers of roads under the special road
laws of Fairfax and Alexandria counties, his compensation to be fixed by
the council.
Section nine provides that no district school tax and no district road
tax shall be assessed and collected, except by the council, on any
property within the corporation limits.
The last important section of the act of incorporation, which assures
the peace and quiet of this village, is the restriction placed upon the
liquor traffic. It reads as follows:
SEC. 10. That any person applying to the county of Fairfax or the county
of Alexandria for a license to sell liquors of any kind, either as a
keeper of an ordinary or eating house, or as a merchant, within the
corporate limits of the town of Falls Church in the said counties, or
within one mile beyond the limits of the said corporation shall produce
before the courts or boards having control of the issuance of licenses
for the sale of liquor of said counties a certificate of said council of
said town to the effect that the applicant is a suitable person and that
no good reason is known to said council why said license should not be
granted. And the courts of said counties or boards having authority
shall not grant the said license to sell liquors within the limits above
prescribed until and unless such a certificate be given. And under no
circumstances and in no event whatever shall the sale of liquors be
licensed in any part of the corporation where license for the sale
thereof has been prohibited under the provisions of chapter twenty-five
of the Code of Virginia, known as the local option law.
[Illustration: Mr. Geo. L. Erwin]
The town is divided into three wards and each ward is represented by
three councilmen.
THE BOARD OF HEALTH, appointed annually by the council, looks after the
health of the town, with authority to carry out such sanitary
regulations as may be deemed wise and expedient. The Board of Health for
the present year consists of Dr. T. C. Quick, Chairman, and Councilmen
John H. Wells and Elmer I. Crump.
THE FIRE DEPARTMENT of the village was organized in 1898. The officers
are a chief engineer and three fire wardens, one from each ward, and a
captain of the fire company. The equipment for fighting fires consists
of one fifty-five and two twenty-five gallon chemical engines of the
most approved pattern and one fully equipped hook and ladder truck. The
larger engine is kept in the central part of the village while the two
smaller ones are stationed at East Falls Church and West End
respectively. The officers are Chief Engineer, Dr. J. B. Gould; Fire
Wardens--1st ward, Geo. T. Mankin; 2d ward, Edgar A. Kimball; 3d ward,
D. B. Patterson.
[Illustration: Mrs. Emma Garner.]
THE VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY, an important factor in the growth and
development of the village, was organized about twenty years ago. The
chief object of the society has been the improvement and adornment of
the streets and the fine shade trees which emborder the village
thoroughfares everywhere attest the fidelity of its members to the
object in view. In addition to the work of this character the society
has aided in various other ways in the work of improving the village
besides furnishing social entertainments for its members and friends.
About fifteen hundred dollars have been raised by the society and
disbursed to excellent advantage in securing substantial benefits to the
public weal.
[Illustration: Mr. E. C. Hough]
The Village Improvement Society was organized in the fall of 1885, the
first officers being Mr. W. H. Doolittle, President; Rev. D. H. Riddle,
Vice-President; Mr. S. V. Proudfit, Secretary and Mr. A. P. Eastman,
Treasurer.
This society was modeled after the famous Laurel Hill Society of
Stockbridge, Mass., and from a pamphlet published some years ago setting
forth its object we learn that its funds have been expended on roads,
sidewalks and street lamps, for a survey of the corporation, a piano for
the public school and other improvements at the school, for taking the
census and for Arbor Day expenses--a total expenditure up to that time
of about eight hundred dollars. The greater part of the money raised by
the society is from voluntary dues or the proceeds of lectures or other
entertainments. The funds raised in this manner are generally expended
through the town council or in conjunction with appropriations made by
that body.
The first observance of Arbor Day in the State was by the Falls Church
Village Improvement Society, when in 1892 this society instituted the
observance of the day by the public school. Since that date the society
has defrayed all Arbor Day expenses.
[Illustration: Major M. S. Hopkins]
By an ordinance of the town adopted February 8, 1904, the third Friday
in April of each year is designated as Arbor Day, to be observed under
the auspices of the Village Improvement Society for the planting of such
trees, plants or shrubs as it may desire.
The officers of the Village Improvement Society for the present year are
as follows:
President, M. E. Church; Vice-President, Franklin Noble, D. D.;
Secretary, Miss Belle Merrifield; Treasurer, George W. Hawxhurst;
Assistant Secretary, Dr. George B. Fadeley.
The meetings are held on the first Monday of each month, except July and
August, at the homes of the different members.
On these occasions after the adjournment of the business meeting, a
literary and musical programme is provided by the hostess of the
evening. Aside from the matter of business, the social part of these
gatherings is a distinct feature of the society, which serves to keep
alive the interest of its members, bringing together congenial friends
and giving "new-comers" an opportunity to become acquainted with their
neighbors.
[Illustration: Mr. S. H. Thornburg]
PIONEER BUSINESS MEN. Among the most prominent business men of Falls
Church who located here about the time the place was incorporated as a
town, or soon thereafter, may be mentioned Mr. M. E. Church. Mr. Church
is a native of Vermont, and upon settling here engaged in the drug
business; he now conducts a successful real estate, loan and insurance
business. He is also connected with other important commercial
interests, and has been an indefatigable worker in promoting the welfare
of the village.
Mr. George W. Mankin, a native of this State, was one of the early
settlers in the village. He conducted a general merchandise business for
a long period of years, but at present is engaged in the drug business
with his son Mr. Geo. T. Mankin, under the firm name of George T. Mankin
& Co. Mr. Mankin has established as high reputation as a business man
and citizen as had his brother Mr. Charles Mankin, the well known dry
goods merchant, but recently deceased.
[Illustration: Mr. Nathan Banks]
Mr. Wm. M. Ellison, whose father was one of the early northern settlers
in this community, is a successful lawyer and real estate broker. Mr.
Ellison stands high as a business man and citizen, having served his
town as a councilman for many years past and as mayor of the town for
several terms. He was recently re-elected councilman from the West End
ward.
Among other prominent merchants who early settled here are Mr. J. W.
Brown, dealer in hardware and general merchandise, and Mr. George
Gaither, dealer in groceries.
Mr. Isaac Crossman, who came here from Pennsylvania soon after the civil
war, purchased for farming purposes a large block of land which is now
situated almost in the center of the village. The price paid was about
forty dollars per acre. A large part of this land has been divided into
town lots and sold. To indicate the increase in real estate values since
the war, the land of this Crossman property lying nearest the northern
boundary of the village sells for one thousand dollars and upward per
acre.
[Illustration: James A. Dickinson, M. D.]