ill
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.

[Illustration]

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 emba