Elcon Jones.

From 1870 to 1902 the County Court was presided over by a single
judge elected by the state's legislature. During that time Thomas E.
Carper, Richard Coleman, J. R. Taylor, J. F. Mayhugh and John D.
Cross were among those who served. Governor Yeardley's order was
abolished in 1902 by a constitutional convention and by 1904 the
circuit courts took over the former work of the county courts. Their
decline was brought about because they had become the symbol of
opposition to a centralized government. Thomas Jefferson said, "the
justices of the inferior courts are self-chosen, are for life, and
perpetuate their own body in succession forever, so that a faction
once possessing themselves of the bench of a county, can never be
broken up...."

John Marshall said "there is no part of America where less disquiet
and less ill feeling between man and man is to be found than in this
commonwealth, and I believe most firmly that this state of things is
mainly to be ascribed to the practical operation of our county
courts".

William Moss served as Clerk of the Court from 1801 to 1833. From
1833 until 1887 F. D. Richardson, Thomas Moss, Alfred Moss, S. M.
Ball, H. T. Brooks, W. B. Gooding, William M. Fitzhugh, D. F.
Dulaney, and F. W. Richardson served as Clerks. F. D. Richardson who
was born in 1800 and entered the Clerk's Office under William Moss
in 1826 was either Clerk, Deputy Clerk or Assistant Clerk to the
date of his death on October 13, 1880, a period of 50 years. His
son, F. W. Richardson, born Dec. 16, 1853, went into the Clerk's
Office when he was 18 years old (1871) and served as Deputy and
Assistant Clerk until the death of his father in 1880, when he was
elected Clerk of the County and Circuit Courts.

It is said that Ripley wrote in "_Believe It or Not_" that "'Uncle
Tude' (F. W. Richardson) and his father had been Clerks of the
Fairfax Courts continuously for one hundred and five years".

[Illustration]

VIII. DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOWN

As the court house drew men to this area and the population
increased, a school for girls was established on the property west
of Truro Episcopal Church. Known as Coomb's Cottage, it was a
finishing school for young girls and boasted a roster of
approximately one hundred young ladies from both the north and the
south.

The school was built and established by Dr. and Mrs. Baker, who were
English. In addition to the main house (a white frame building west
o