On July 18, 1774, a group of about 12 men gathered in the Fairfax County Court House. The colonies were upset over England’s taxation policies, enacted in the aftermath of the French and Indian War and acts of rebellion in Boston. The “Intolerable Acts” nullified the Massachusetts Colony charter, closed the port in Boston, allowed British officials charged with capital crimes to be tried in England and revised the Quartering Act across the colonies. As a result, in the early 1770s, numerous cities and towns across the colonies — not just in Boston — began drafting their own documents calling for political action against the Crown.
Among this group of men were two of Virginia’s most significant residents in the Revolutionary cause: George Washington and George Mason. The day before, they had written up the Fairfax Resolves, a document that called strongly for the unification of the colonies against England, as well as a meeting of all the colonies in reference to the matter.
The Resolves were adopted that day in the courthouse with Washington and clerk Robert Harrison as chairs. The first resolution was:
“RESOLVED that this Colony and Dominion of Virginia can not be considered as a conquered Country; and if it was, that the present Inhabitants are the Descendants not of the Conquered, but of the Conquerors.”
Aside from the presence of Washington and Mason, the strong language of the Fairfax Resolves made them significant in their own right, according to Susan Gray of the Fairfax Museum and Visitors Center.
“[The Resolves] are unusual because two of the most important colonial leaders were involved in the writing — George Washington and George Mason — but also because the language is bolder and more radical,” she said.
The Resolves mince no words. They describe the British House of Commons, which controlled the people of America, thus:
“In whose Election we have no Share, on whose Determinations we can have no Influence, whose Information [must] be always defective and often false.” The Resolves also called for the colonies to block English imports until “American Grievances be redressed.”
The Resolves were passed in Williamsburg at the Virginia Convention, and then taken to the First Continental Congress.
“Before that, the colonies had been acting more independently,” said Gray. The Fairfax Resolves make a strong statement, she said, calling for union of the colonies and for a meeting. That meeting eventually became the First Continental Congress.
“It’s the strongest mention to date,” she said.
NEARLY A HUNDRED years later, Fairfax was in the middle of another tumultuous period in the nation’s history. Close to Washington, D.C., the Fairfax Court House (which by the time of the Civil War had moved up to present-day Fairfax City) became a base for Union troops, who moved in force in 1862. They took up quarters in the courthouse itself, which also served as a stable and commissary.
Someone removed most of the documents from the courthouse before the Union troops got there, said Gray, but a court logbook was left behind. Soldiers, doubtless bored at times, used the logbook to doodle.
“Naturally, soldiers were picking them up and writing on them — doodling and political satire,” she said.
Some soldiers wrote out what they hoped would happen in the war.
An entry from June 23, 1863 says: “Twenty years from date I promise/To pay Jeff Davis and/Crew the debt of treason which/is now credited to them.” It is signed, “Uncle Sam.”
One account has a Vermont soldier using the logbook as a pillow to sleep on. Others attempted poetry. One soldier began to write a poem about “Old abe lincon/ in a …” but never finished.
Evidently, however, some soldiers were pleased with their surroundings. William H. Warren, a private from Connecticut, wrote in 1862:
“The village of Fairfax is … the most civilized place I have seen since leaving Alexandria … Fairfax has been a well-to-do place, but no period could equal the liveliness of the present. The streets are filled with soldiers — privates, orderlies, teamsters, and officers of all grades.”
Sources for this story are “Fairfax, Virginia: A City Traveling through Time” by Nan Netherton, Ruth Preston Rose, David L. Meyer, Peggy Talbot Wagner and Mary Elizabeth Cawley DiVincenzo (1997), “Fairfax County, Virginia: A History” by Nan Netherton, Daniel Sweig, Janice Artemel, Patricia Hickin and Patrick Reed (1978), Susan Gray and the Fairfax Museum and Visitors Center. With special thanks to Nancy Makowski, Suzanne Levy, Anne Toohey and Michele Bernocco of the Virginia Room.