Burke Methodist Church (Site)
GPS Coordinates: 38.7934748, -77.2713582
Closest Address: 9415 Old Burke Lake Road, Burke, VA 22015

Here follows an excerpt from the 1970 Fairfax County Master Inventory of Historic Sites which contained entries from the Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory:
The community of Burke was named after Silas Burke, a local land owner who was prominent in Fairfax County affairs of his time. According to lifelong residents of Burke, Mrs. Rena Carter, Mr. Harry Marshall and Mr. William J. Harlow, the station was built about 1857, as the Orange and Alexandria Railroad was being completed. It is from this building, according to local tradition and published sources, that General J. E. B. Stuart sent his famous message to President Abraham Lincoln deploring the condition of Union Army mules which he had captured.
In 1903 the railroad, having been consolidated with the Southern Railway after the Civil War, relocated its right-of-way on land donated by Robert E. Marshall, in return for the station and the old right-of-way. The building was used for various purposes -- as a community hall, a school and a Sunday school -- before it became a recognized church.
The building originally faced the railroad right-of-way, now State Route 652. It contained a passenger waiting room, a ticket office, and a telegraph office. It was probably of board and batten construction, as shown in a postcard picture taken of it in the first decade of the twentieth century. About 1940-42 the waiting room was razed and the remaining building was rotated ninety degrees counterclockwise so that the original east side now faces north. William Harlow was engaged at the time to do carpentry work in order to convert the building to church use. He found many newspapers of the Civil War period, most of which are still contained within the walls of the church. Mr. Harlow applied the asbestos shingles to the exterior walls and built the vestibule, steeple, and cross.