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.]

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