Beginning around 1632, land that is now known as Fairfax County became gradually populated with English traders from Maryland. They were joined around 1649 by Jamestown colonists seeking unused land. Thereupon, what is now northern Virginia became known in Jamestown as the land of opportunity and wealthy landowners bought large units of 500 to 3,000 acres for speculation. Unwilling to settle among unfriendly Indians, these speculators hired indentured slaves from Europe to work the land for them. Although hardy and decent, these indentures lived a crude existence, which was not at all understood by the cultured people of southern Virginia. Further complicating matters, the failure of the Jamestown gentry to buy out the title to the land in lower Fairfax County from the Doeg Indians incensed the Doegs, who committed a series of murders on the frontier. Retaliating, the colonists mistakenly killed non-Doegs, and were at war with the Susquehannock and Occannechi Indians also. The few Indians who survived ebbed into Pennsylvania.

      Around the end of the 17th century, gentry began to move into the Fairfax County area. Heretofore, indentured servants had formed the largest part of the population. Having worked a few years to earn their freedom, becoming landowners themselves, and realizing their own need for help in working their fields, these former indentures accepted as servants the convicts England wished to export to America. Legislative efforts to stop this practice, described by Benjamin Franklin as "the most cruel insult that perhaps was ever offered by one people to another," were thwarted by the greediness of the planters who loved such cheap labor. After serving seven years, the convicts (gin fiends, beggars, murderers and arsonists) wreaked havoc across the land; they were given credit for burning public and private buildings, churches, and even the Capitol itself in Williamsburg.

      The Fairfax County area was comprised of gentry, indentured servants, convicts and slaves. Each household appeared to be a small village. Most houses had two rooms and several closets on the first floor. There were separate buildings for the kitchen, for Christian servants, for Negro slaves, and several for curing tobacco. Supplies were purchased from English traveling salesmen, who stopped at each creek.

      When "King" Carter, proprietary agent, found deposits of copper in the northern part of Fairfax County, he and his sons opened up an Indian trail which came from Occoquan, passed near the future site of Fairfax courthouse and continued toward Chantilly. This road made more land accessible, and in 1732 "King" Carter named the new parish set up on the land now known as Fairfax County "Truro," after a borough of Cornwall, England, which was a shipping port for tin and copper ore, because he anticipated that it would be a mining district. The future town of Fairfax was developing around a tavern known as Earp's Ordinary, built sometime prior to 1742. Here travelers could secure food, lodging, and the latest news. At one time the area was known as Earp's Corner. Recent research indicates that the real Earp's Ordinary may have been town down in the early 1920's and that the Ratcliffe-Logan Allison House has since then inherited the legend and history of the Earp store.

      In 1742 the area was organized as Fairfax county and the Parish of Truro by the Virginia House of Burgesses. In 1768 Truro Episcopal Church was completed; among its early vestrymen were George Washington and George Mason. Truro Rectory, built around 1800, still stands today in the City of Fairfax.

      The gentry of Fairfax county figured prominently in the Revolution, backing Patrick Henry in his protests. The writings of George Mason, planter-lawyer, are well known, i.e., the Non-importation Resolutions in 1769, his Fairfax Resolves in 1774, the First Constitution of Virginia and the Bill of Rights in 1776. The Fairfax planter, George Washington, was Commander in chief of the Continental Army, which included many Fairfax county citizens.

      During the 1790s efforts had been made by George Mason and other influential citizens to move the county Court from its location in Alexandria. A more central location was needed as the County developed in other areas. Moreover, the Court building in Alexandria had fallen into disrepair. However, the most compelling reason for relocating the Court was the impending plan to make Alexandria into part of the District of Columbia. Thus, in 1798, the Virginia General Assembly passed a resolution to relocate the Court to Earp's corner at the intersection of two dirt roads, Ox Road (route 123) and The Little River Turnpike (Route 236). Four areas of the vacant land there were purchased from the vast holdings of Richard Ratcliffe for the price of one dollar and were to be used for a courthouse, jail, clerk's office, and such other buildings as were necessary for the County Justices of the Peace to perform their duties. The Courthouse was designed by James Wren and opened for business on April 21, 1800. On file there are the wills of George and Martha Washington. The Courthouse is still in use as the Fairfax County Courthouse.

      The County Court, serving as the local government, was the hub around which a town began to develop. In 1805 an Act of the Virginia General Assembly created the town of Providence on the land of Richard Ratcliffe, at the courthouse of Fairfax County. Fourteen acres of land in half-acre lots, with streets, were sold with the provision that the purchaser build within seven years a house of at least 16 feet square, with a chimney, on each lot.

      As the residents of this as well as other newer internal settlements began to feel a need to reach the older port cities, Alexandria was granted a charter from the Virginia Legislature to form the Little River Turnpike Company to build a road of broken stone to the Shenandoah Valley with a branch from Providence to Warrenton. This turnpike was our nation's first improved road; tolls for the use of it were collected at Earp's Ordinary. While Fairfax County was largely agricultural, the activity and growth of Providence were due to the fussiness associated with the Courthouse, so much so that the town was more commonly referred to as "Fairfax Courthouse." In 1835, Providence had a population of 200, including four attorneys and two physicians; it had 50 homes, three mercantile stores, four taverns and one common school; it offered the services of boot and shoe makers, saddlers, blacksmiths and tailors.

      The 1850s saw a period of church construction as a result of meetings held by traveling ministers and attended by masses of people who found hope in the Methodist teaching of grace for all. Northern farming methods, learned from new settlers, brought about considerably improved agricultural yields, and transportation improved with the introduction of the railroads and some improvements in existing roads. Providence finally began to enjoy a period of prosperity. Its citizens found pleasure in social activities such as river excursions, barbecues, hunting, political rallies, temperance gatherings, and even jousting tournaments.

      In 1859, John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry ushered in a period of anxiety that would last until Providence, as well as the rest of the South, was forever changed. Of the 1,490 Fairfax County voters in the 1860 Presidential election, 54 percent remained loyal to the Union. The County was clearly divided; neighbors, friends, relatives, and even families experienced a new vexation when they found themselves on opposing sides. The absence of a local government, after Virginia voted to secede, further confused life in Providence; the presence of Union troops made it unwise to assembly the Court, since all but three of the magistrates had secessionist sympathies. Armies usurped the use of the railroads and frustrated farmers' needs to ship produce to market. Despair descended as families watched soldiers carry off food, animals, and furniture; even buildings were dismantled by soldiers for material for military buildings. Many citizens left the County for the duration of the war.

      The first Confederate officer casualty of the war occurred at the Courthouse. In a skirmish on June 1, 1861, Captain John Quincy Marr, camped there with the Warrenton Rifles, was killed by a Union cavalry passing through town.

      Providence was in a difficult position, belonging to the Confederacy and being located so close to the Union Capitol. In 1862, the confederates retreated, leaving Providence under the control of the Union Army for the remainder of the war. Although it did not host any major battles, Providence was the scene of much Confederate guerrilla activity against the Union lines. The most well known of these many guerrilla troops was Colonel John Singleton Mosby whose daring escapades against the Union Army made him the darling of the South and a terror to the North. On March 9, 1863, he captured Union Brigadier General Edwin H. Stoughton in his sleep at the Truro Rectory in Providence; two Union captains, 30 privates, and 58 horses were included in the bounty from the raid. In retaliation Union forces arrested a number of Providence residents suspected of having confederate sympathies; one of those was pretty 19-year old Antonia Ford who was accused of supplying Mosby with information on General Stoughton, and was incarcerated at Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. While the Union sympathizers considered Mosby and his men to be scoundrels and thieves, to the confederates he was a hero, the nuisance who humiliated the Union soldiers even as they were winning.

      The summer of 1865 found the people of Providence trying to restore order to their lives, making homes out of whatever remained. Schools and churches re-opened; roads, bridges and railroad lines were rebuilt; stores were re-stocked; everyone sought loans. Most Providence residents were to accept an end to slavery and felt some interest in correcting the poverty and illiteracy that had plagued their town; but they had suffered so greatly during the war that they were reluctant to abandon their old customs, wanting to preserve the "old Virginia" ways. By 1870, when Virginia was readmitted to the Union, Providence along with Fairfax County, had largely recovered from the war.

      In 1874, Providence assumed the name "Fairfax" when Culpeper abandoned it. The town of Fairfax was the county seat and an integral part of Fairfax county until 1961, when it was incorporated as an independent city.

      This was the flavor of life in the town of Providence, as well as the forces from which it emerged. It struggled into the twentieth century destined to become a booming suburb of the Nation's Capitol.

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