h
holds that John Moss built the mansion house at Green Spring Farm in
or about 1760.[1]

John Moss lived in this house until his death in 1809. Here he raised
four sons--John, Samuel, William, and Thomas--the last two of whom
successively inherited and worked the farm from 1809 until 1839. On
the death of Thomas Moss in 1839, the farm was sold and the proceeds
of the sale were divided among his heirs.

[Illustration: Figure 1. John Warner Survey Map, 1740. Northern Neck
Grants, Book E, 1736-1742, pp. 216-17.]

In the case of John Moss, more is known of his activities in the
community than of his life as a farmer. In particular, he was a leader
of the early Methodist church in Virginia. The well-known itinerant
Methodist preacher, John Littlejohn, records several visits to the
home of John Moss in Fairfax County, beginning in May 1777. Many
Methodist meetings were held at Green Spring Farm in the 1770's and
1780's. One, held on April 29, 1778, led to the following interesting
note:

At B^r Jn^o Mosses, met with M^r afterward Lord Fairfax we found
our trials as to preach^g were very similar, he is very serious
but his religion is a mystry to me. Lord help us both.[2]

And, in 1787, Francis Asbury noted in his journal:

Preached at Brother Mosses on 2 Chronicles XV, 12-13 on the
peoples entering into a covenant with God.[3]

It seems evident that during these years, John Moss's home served as a
meeting place for a Methodist congregation which lacked a church
building and was served by the occasional visits of itinerant
preachers. That the congregation grew and prospered also seems evident
from the fact that in June 1789 John Moss served as a trustee of a
Methodist Episcopal church to be built in Alexandria "just north of
the Presbyterian Meeting House" (Duke and Fairfax Streets) for the use
of Reverend Thomas Cooke and Reverend Francis Asbury.[4]

In the county community, John Moss also was one of the group of
gentlemen freeholders in whom the responsibility of power was reposed.
He enjoyed the friendship and trust of Bryan Fairfax to the extent
that he witnessed and served as coexecutor of the latter's will,[5]
and he was a party to several land sales and leases which involved
Fairfax.[6] By these transactions, he acquired extensive lands in
Loudoun County as well as land on Dogue Creek in Fairfax County.[7]

In colonial times, he served the Crown as Commissioner of the King's
Revenue in Fairfax Cou