] In addition, the law authorized construction of a
ducking stool, if deemed necessary, and required establishment of a
10-acre tract in which those imprisoned for minor crimes might, on
good behavior, walk for exercise. In addition, buildings were
customarily provided to house the office of the Clerk of the Court,
and to accommodate the justices of the assize and their entourage of
lawyers and others who accompanied them as they rode circuit among the
counties of the colony. In England, the "assizes" were sessions of the
justices' courts which met, generally twice a year in each shire, for
trial of questions of fact in both civil and criminal cases. The
county courts in colonial Virginia continued to be called assizes for
much of the 18th Century.

When events moved toward the partition of Prince William County to
create the County of Fairfax, the Journal of the Governor in Council
in Williamsburg recorded the following entry:

Saturday, June ye 19th, 1742

....

ORDERED that the Court-house for Fairfax County be appointed at a
place call'd Spring Fields scituated between the New Church and Ox
Road in the Branches of Difficult Run, Hunting Creek and
Accotinck.[4]

Whether this was the first seat of the Fairfax County Court is not
positively known. It is possible that the first sessions of the court
may have been held at Colchester. Although no records of the
transactions at these sessions have been found, an early history of
the County cites entries in an early deed book which order the removal
of the County Court's records from Colchester to a new courthouse more
centrally located in the county.[5]

Be this as it may, the plan to establish a courthouse which was
formalized by the Governor in Council apparently was deliberately
designed to accommodate the increasing settlement of areas inland from
the river plantations--an interest which the Proprietor, Thomas sixth
Lord Fairfax, shared.

"Spring Fields", the site of the court house, was part of a tract of
1,429 acres owned in 1740 by John Colvill, and conveyed by him in that
year to William Fairfax.[6] In this tract were numerous springs
forming the sources of Difficult Run, Accotinck Creek, Wolf Trap Run,
Scott's Run and Pimmit Run. It was high ground, comprising part of the
plateau area of the northern part of the County, and the site selected
for the courthouse had a commanding view for many miles around.

The location specified i