and freed from debt. Its frame
building had been erected on the foundation of the original church
at a cost of about $2,000.00. In 1882 the present Rectory property
was purchased.

Among the families who formed the congregation after the war were
the Bakers, Balls, Chichesters, Fairfaxes, Fitzhughs, Fergusons,
Gunnells, Hunters, Mosses, Ratcliffes, Ryers, Stuarts, Terretts,
Towners, Burkes, Coopers, Loves, Rumseys, Moores, Fords, Bowmans,
Keiths, Thorntons, Bleights, Moncures, Ballards, and McWhorters.

The Methodist Church in the meantime found its strength in the
southern church's Fairfax Circuit and began to replace the first
Duncan's Chapel which had been used by both Confederate and Union
forces and was believed to have been finally burned and destroyed by
Union troops. In 1882 the local board purchased the lot adjoining
Duncan Chapel and built a nine room parsonage. Both of these
buildings are used today for official county business.

In 1882 the widely scattered rural membership was hampered by severe
winters, bad roads, severe epidemics (diphtheria) and in 1888 Rev.
O. C. Beak wrote of the general business depression in this area
which caused the church to suffer "from removals". (The Methodist
Church did not reach its "Golden Age" until the 1900's.)

The following map of the 1887's shows a black school located next to
the Fairfax Cemetery. Church services for the black people were
evidently held here too, for older residents of the town speak of
sitting on the opposite side of the road listening to the hymns
pouring forth from the little schoolhouse.

By 1882 the people began to look forward again throughout the entire
nation. The telephone had been invented in 1876. Better news
service of the papers followed the founding of the Associated Press.
The foundation for the fine art of American printing was being laid.
It was one of the most vigorous artistic and intellectual periods.

[Illustration]

In Fairfax telephone service was started in 1887. Offices were
located in Alexandria, Annandale, Fairfax Court House, Centreville,
Gainesville, Haymarket and Thoroughfare. The price of a message to
Alexandria was 15 cents, to any other point 10 cents; there was no
charge for the answer. Messages were limited to five minutes. The
first phone in Fairfax was installed in the Willcoxon Tavern. Here
the town people could go to make or receive calls.

Captain S. R. Donohue set up a newspaper office at the west cor