Old Presbyterian Meeting House

Here follows an excerpt from the church's website:

The Old Presbyterian Meeting House has a long and storied history. Over two centuries of faith and community have been celebrated inside these walls.

TIMELINE

1760:
Alexandria’s Presbyterians begin worshiping congregationally in the Assembly Hall located on the town’s Market Square with clergy supplied from Pennsylvania. Earlier, worship services were conducted in private homes, known as “reading houses.”

1772:
The local Society of Presbyterians organizes as a formal congregation when it calls the Reverend William Thom (1750-1773) as its first pastor. He is struck down by yellow fever the following year.

1775:
The original meeting house is erected on the same site as the current one. Its hipped roof design incorporates a cupola with Alexandria’s only bell.

1780:
The Reverend Isaac Stockton Keith, D.D. (1755-1813) is called as our second pastor. He serves as the founding president of the Alexandria Academy, an early experiment in providing schooling without regard to gender, race, or ability to pay. Four Presbyterian ministers succeed him as president or headmaster, and its scholars (students) are publicly examined at the Meeting House. He serves here until 1788 when he is called to serve a congregation in Charleston, South Carolina.

1785:
Reverend Keith, General Daniel Roberdeau and other members of the congregation sign the Memorial and Remonstrance opposing Virginia’s pending religious assessment bill. With passage of the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786), Alexandria’s Presbyterians petition the General Assembly “praying that the Society of which they are members may be constituted a Body corporate and politic and vested with such civil prerogatives and privileges as are usually granted to other incorporated Churches saving to them the free and full exercise of every spiritual power which essentially belongs to them in the Capacity of a Christian Church.”

1787:
Flounder House is erected as a parsonage by Robert Brockett in the classic flounder style. It still stands and now houses offices and meeting rooms.

1789:
The Reverend James Muir, D.D. (1757-1820) is called as the congregation’s third pastor. Born in Scotland, he serves the congregation for thirty-one years, and assists in establishing the Alexandria Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, Alexandria Library Company, Alexandria Relief Society, Onesimus Society, Washington Society of Alexandria, Board of Guardians of the Free Schools, and the Bible Society of the District of Columbia. He founds and edits The Monthly Visitant, and negotiates with the British to save Alexandria during the War of 1812.

1799:
When George Washington dies at Mount Vernon in December 1799, four community memorial services are conducted at the Meeting House. They are led by the Rev. William Maffit, headmaster of Alexandria Academy, the Rev. Thomas Davis, Jr., of Christ Church, the Rev. James Muir of the Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. James Tolleson of the Methodist Church. The Meeting House church bell tolls from the time of Washington’s death until his interment.

1809:
The Alexandria Presbyterian Cemetery is established. Prior to that date, congregation members were interred in the churchyard Burial Ground. The cemetery was created in response to the passage of an 1804 Common Council ordinance forbidding further burials within the town limits.

1816:
A Sabbath-Day School is established at the Meeting House. Classes, initially led by eight teachers and elders, utilize the catechisms of both Isaac Watts and the Presbyterian Church.

1817:
Differences among members over style of worship lead to the formation of a second Presbyterian congregation. The congregation continuing at the Meeting House is renamed First Presbyterian Church. The new congregation becomes Second Presbyterian Church.

The church’s first pipe organ, built by Jacob Hilbus and Henry Howison of Washington, D.C., is installed during the year.

1820:
The Reverend Elias Harrison, D.D. (1790-1863) is called as our fourth pastor. He serves the congregation for forty-three years through the tumultuous period that culminates in the Civil War. He heads the Alexandria Academy; presides over the Board of Guardians of the Free Schools; is a founder of Alexandria’s Lyceum, its Orphan Asylum, and Female Free School; directs the Alexandria Library Company; and is a national director of the American Colonization Society.

1835:
Lightning strikes the Meeting House in July and the ensuing fire destroys most of it. The rebuilt structure, completed in 1837, again utilizes a Georgian style, but the roof assumes a straight roofline. A bell tower, with re-cast bell, is added in 1843, and the entrance porch and steps are re-done in granite in 1853.

With remarkably few subsequent alterations, the rebuilt Meeting House remains an outstanding expression of Reformed Protestant plain style (meeting house) architecture to the present day.

1836:
The Presbytery of the District of Columbia, which had convened for its founding at the Meeting House in 1823, returns to Alexandria to discuss issues that will divide the Presbyterian Church into Old School and New School denominations the following year.

1849:
The church’s second pipe organ, built by Henry Erben of New York City, is installed. It includes 9 stops and remains in use today.

1865:
When the Commonwealth of Virginia joins the Confederate States of America, Alexandria is immediately occupied by the U.S. Army forces. The town becomes a major staging ground and hospital center for the Union Army for the duration of the war. The Meeting House congregation includes many strong Unionists and worship services continue to be conducted throughout these difficult times.

The Meeting House remains with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Second Presbyterian Church, which had joined the United Synod Presbyterian denomination in 1857 to insure that clergy and members could own slaves “from principle and as a matter of choice,” joins the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. after the war.

1880:
Following the Civil War, a series of pastors serve the congregation, each for a few years only — Reverend George M. McCampbell (1841-1918), our fifth pastor, serves from 1866 until he is called to Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City; Reverend William A. McAtee, D.D. (1838-1902), our sixth pastor, serves from 1870 until he is called to the Presbyterian Church in Hagerstown, Maryland; Reverend James M. Nourse (1840-1922), our seventh pastor, serves from 1885 until he is called to Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

During 1874-80, large portions of Alexandria’s two Presbyterian congregations unite to form the Union Presbyterian Church, an experiment “looking for a union of the whole Presbyterian family North and South.” They worship at the Meeting House and are led by the Reverend J. J. Bullock, D.D. (1812-1892), who also serves as chaplain of the U.S. Senate.

During the 1880s, a Congregational minister, the Reverend Eliphalet Whittlesey (1821-1909), frequently leads the congregation in worship while also serving Howard University and the U.S. Board of Indian Commissioners.

1890:
On entering the 1890s, the congregation numbers seventy communicant members. Prior to the Civil War, the congregation averaged about two hundred communicant members. Efforts to call a pastor from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. to serve the congregation during the decade are not successful and the congregation dissolves.

1899:
The Meeting House property is conveyed to Second Presbyterian Church and is retained by that congregation until 1949. The Meeting House is used for worship services and Sunday School classes by numerous groups, including Bethany Methodist, Lee Street Chapel, Bethel Presbyterian Mission, St. Paul’s Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, Salvation Army, ship-builders and torpedo-builders during World War I, and Second Presbyterian Church.

Flounder House provides shelter for the indigent and serves as a rental property.

1925:
Second Presbyterian Church organizes a restoration of the Meeting House that includes the cleaning and repairing of walls and pews, and the installation of a slate roof. The restored structure is rededicated on June 8, 1928 and is regularly open to the public for visitation.

1929:
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution is erected by the National Society of the Children of the American Revolution.

1932:
The city of Alexandria concludes its George Washington Birth Bicentennial Celebration on the 133rd anniversary of Washington’s death with a program at the Meeting House.

1938:
A memorial service held on the 140th anniversary of a service led by the Rev. Dr. James Muir on May 9, 1798, a National Day of Solemn Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer that was attended by George Washington, reflects on the current and earlier period’s “hazardous and afflictive situation”. [A plaque memorializing this event is at the Fairfax Street entrance.]

1949:
Sponsored by Second Presbyterian Church, an independent congregation is once again created at the Meeting House. Its first worship service is led by the Rev. Dr. A. Donald Upton on the nineteenth of June 1949.

1950:
The Reverend Dr. Kenneth G. Phifer (1915-1985) is called as our eighth pastor. Among his many efforts to lead the newly established congregation, he organizes a joint meeting of the presbyteries of Potomac (“Southern” denomination of Presbyterians) and Washington City (“Northern” denomination of Presbyterians) at the Meeting House in 1952, the first formal meeting of local Presbyterians since the Civil War. The Education Building, dedicated in 1957, is the congregation’s first new structure in over 120 years. In 1959, Rev. Phifer serves on the city’s Committee for Public Schools. Later that same year, he is called to the Louisville Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

1960:
The Reverend Dr. William Randolph Sengel is called as the congregation’s ninth pastor. He leads efforts to advance social and racial justice within the church and the local community; to re-unite the northern and southern denominations of the Presbyterian Church; and to promote ecumenism. He serves our congregation until 1986 when he becomes pastor emeritus.

1978:
Sherrard and Jean Elliot convey their residence to the congregation. It is located next to the Meeting House on Fairfax Street and dates from the 1840s. Restored and extended in 2005, it now accommodates church offices.

1987:
The Reverend Dr. Thomas K. Farmer is called as our tenth pastor. Rev. Farmer serves until he is called to the Presbyterian Church in Danville, Kentucky.

1988:
The Reverend Dr. Edna Jacobs Banes is called as our third associate pastor. She is the first woman to serve as a minister of the Word and Sacrament at the Meeting House, and serves here until she is called to Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia in 2001.

1993:
The Reverend Dr. Gary W. Charles is called as our eleventh pastor. Under his leadership, the congregation joins the Covenant Network of Presbyterians in welcoming “all whom God calls into community and leadership in God’s church.” In 2004, he is called to serve Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

1997:
The church’s fourth pipe organ is installed. Built by Lively-Fulcher as Opus 4, it replaces a Reuter organ that had served since 1965. It includes 35 ranks and 2,026 pipes.

2005:
Elliot House is dedicated. When Jean Elliot died in 1999, the Meeting House prepared plans to restore the original structure, construct an addition, and create a new side-yard garden. In conjunction with this project, a formal archaeological investigation of the yard was undertaken and a former well and a cistern were unearthed. Excavations produced numerous artifacts, which are now stored with the city’s Alexandria Archaeology (Alexandria Archaeology n.d., Jirikowic et al. 2004). The restored and expanded Elliot House today includes original rooms on the first floor — parlor and library — and on the second floor — minister’s study and conference room — plus offices for church staff and meeting rooms in the addition. An Award of Merit for “outstanding achievements in historic resources” was presented by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute for Architects to the Meeting House congregation for its restoration/renovation of the original portion of the structure and its extension in 2006.

2006:
The Reverend Dr. Robert R. Laha, Jr. is called as the twelfth installed pastor. Dr. Laha serves for nearly seventeen years, retiring from ministry in January 2023.

2013:
The congregation launches the Open Table program, after Washington Street United Methodist approached us about providing a hot breakfast to those in need one day a week to supplement their two day a week breakfast. Today, three churches – OPMH, Old Town Community Church [formerly Downtown Baptist] and Washington Street Methodist – provide breakfast Monday through Friday in Old Town Alexandria.

Church Buildings
Historic Buildings

With structures erected in the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, in architectural styles ranging from Georgian to Greek Revival to vernacular, a historical perspective is essential to appreciate the rich material-culture heritage of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House.

Meeting House:
The original Meeting House, erected in 1775, was largely destroyed by fire in 1835. The rebuilt structure that survives to this day represents a remarkably pure embodiment of what is sometimes referred to as "plain style architecture," which is frequently described as unadorned, modest, functional, and quietly reverential. In the mid 1920s, Second Presbyterian Church led a major restoration of the old Meeting House. In 1949, the Meeting House congregation was reborn and remains an active congregation today.

General information about the original structure survives, but no image is known to exist that was made during the sixty years it served the congregation. From textual information that survives, we know that many design aspects of the original Meeting House were incorporated into the rebuilt structure that was completed in 1837. The two structures resembled each other in appearance.

The reconstructed Meeting House incorporated very little that would have been innovative in terms of contemporary American church architecture practices during the 1830s. In fact, the rebuilt structure that survives to this day represents a remarkably pure embodiment of what is sometimes referred to as "plain style architecture," a form of architectural expression that was closely associated with Reformed-Calvinist denominations in the United States and had been practiced for well over a century by the 1830s.

Reformed-Protestant plain style architecture, although employed infrequently in Virginia where the Church of England dominated, appeared frequently in places of worship for Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, Dutch Reformed, and German Reformed congregations throughout the Middle Atlantic states and New England. Terms such as "unadorned," "austere," "modest," "functional," "noble simplicity," and "quietly reverential" are among those often used to describe the visual impact of Reformed-Protestant plain style architecture. Rather than a true architectural style, it is an architectural expression —it is an "unadorned" expression as opposed to an "adorned" or "ornate" one. This unadorned expression may be wrought in numerous architectural styles. The formal architectural style of the Meeting House is Georgian. Equally unadorned expressions may be found in places of worship constructed in Modern and Post-Modern architectural styles of the current century.

Theologically, Reformed-Protestant plain style architecture attempts to create a place of worship that is based upon principles for corporate worship in the Reformed theological tradition, viz., a worship space that (1) forms a Domus Ecclesia, house for the gathered assembly, i.e., a meeting house, rather than a Domus Dei, house of God, with separate spaces for priests and worshippers, and (2) visually emphasizes the importance of the Word proclaimed. Thus, of most importance, is the centrality of a pulpit within a "preaching room" or "auditory church building," with accompanying facilities for baptism and celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the latter never including a communion rail as is typically found in the worship spaces of Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican-Episcopalian congregations. Most importantly, worshippers in such a space are accommodated in a spatial arrangement that facilitates hearing the Word (the reading of scripture and preaching). Embellishment or decoration of the worship space, even the presence of a cross, in a strict Reformed theological sense, is interpreted as a form of visual distraction from the principle task of worshippers engaged in corporate worship through focusing on hearing and responding to the Word.

Original Meeting House
The original Meeting House was erected as Alexandria’s second house of worship in 1775, two years after the house of worship for the Church of England — now Christ (Episcopal) Church — had been erected, which then served as the official place of worship for this portion of Fairfax parish. No taken-from-life image exists of the original structure, but we know that it possessed basically the same overall dimensions — 60 by 50 feet — as the four other places of worship erected in this area during the period, which were for congregations of the Church of England — St. John’s Church, across the Potomac River at Broad Creek, Maryland (constructed in 1766), Falls Church in Fairfax County to the west (1767-69), Pohick Church in Fairfax County to the south (1769-74), and Christ Church in Alexandria (1773). Externally, they all presented very similar appearances, differing only in terms of number of stories and detailing (Upton 1997).

The original Meeting House was a two story structure, with walls 26-feet tall and a hipped roof topped by a cupola that contained a gilded bell. Its entrance doors were located on Fairfax Street, or perhaps on both Fairfax street and its southern side facing the alley that would have served as a walkway to a second set of entrance doors. The placement of entrance doors in adjacent walls was not unusual in local Anglican church structures, where seating configurations emphasized spaces for families accommodated with box pews, and cross aisles that allowed easy access to liturgical stations at several different locations within the worship space (rather than all being clustered at the front). An excellent example of this local early style of internal arrangement continues to exist at Pohick (formerly Church of England now Episcopalian) Church, in Fairfax County south of Mount Vernon.

A conjectural drawing of the original Meeting House, the only image of the original Meeting House known to exist, it was prepared by Mary Jane Stewart (1829-1909) around 1880, and is similar to one that appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Carne 1880). Stewart was a member of the congregation who could have possessed only a vague recollection of the original Meeting House — she was only six years old when it burned, and the drawing was prepared nearly a half century after the fire. Nonetheless, her representation could incorporate good handed-down information — her father, John A. Stewart would have possessed knowledge of the original structure that had been formed over decades. He had been a member of the congregation prior to 1817 and had served on the church committee when the original structure burned.

The Stewart image is presumably meant to depict the Meeting House as it would have appeared during the first half of the 1830s, just prior to the fire. The open and semi-pastoral setting depicted in the drawing is probably accurate, as the churchyard’s location in the 300-block of South Fairfax Street was long considered to be "at the southern end of the street", meaning at the end of the street’s built-up portion. During this period, the location of Christ Church, in the 700-block of Cameron Street, was considered even more remote — it was thought to be located "out of town" all together . The churchyard of the original Meeting House was separated from the paved sidewalk of Fairfax street by a brick wall.

The interior configuration of the original Meeting House probably differed at least somewhat, and possibly considerably, from the reconstructed Meeting House. Information on its layout is fragmentary. The pulpit was located along the north wall — the current pulpit is centered on the west wall. Originally, seating included at least some benches. In the eighteenth century, congregational seating often included both enclosed pews and benches. One of these original benches remains in use — it is the black bench with an extra deep seat that provides seating at the west end of the southern gallery. Some of the benches used in the original structure were sold to the Alexandria-Washington Masonic Lodge No. 22 in 1789. Those benches continue to be preserved in the recreated Alexandria lodge room at the George Washington National Masonic Memorial on King Street.

Enclosed pews with doors, either slip pews like the ones installed in the reconstructed Meeting House and still in use today, or box pews like those found at Pohick Church, provided a second form of seating in the original Meeting House. Galleries, to bring listeners as close to the pulpit as possible, extended along three sides of the original structure, as in the current Meeting House. A pipe organ, built by Jacob Hilbus of Washington, D.C., was installed in the gallery opposite the pulpit in 1817 and served until it was destroyed by the fire of 1835. If the original structure had entrance doors on adjacent walls, as in the manner of Pohick Church, then its aisles probably extended from both sets of doors and crossed in the center of the room.

The original Meeting House did not include a bell tower, but instead had a cupola on the roof to hold high the town’s first, and for many years only, publicly sounding bell. The bell was manufactured by the foundry of Morton and Foster in London and served not only as the signal that worship services were soon to begin, but also as the entire community’s public announcement system — from sounding an alarm in emergencies such as fires to mourning the death of George Washington in 1799.

The congregation contemplated erecting a truly massive bell tower and steeple, complete with town clock, in the late 1780s to accommodate its then-new church bell but it was not to be. Plans to erect a tower and steeple were advertised — newspaper notices seeking construction bids called for ìbrick and stone work [that] are to be 95 feet high from the foundation, on which will be erected a spire of wood, of 65 feet highî. At 160 feet, this would have been a truly massive bell tower and steeple. It would have been nearly 100 feet taller than the current 65-foot bell tower, and 40 feet taller than the current bell tower and steeple of neighboring St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. Following the standard fund-raising procedure of the day, a public lottery was undertaken, but a smallpox epidemic swept through Alexandria in 1791 — at the time no doubt considered a Providential intervention — and forced its cancellation. Plans for a tower and steeple were abandoned, and none was ever constructed.

In 1835, a lightning strike largely destroyed the original structure, but it had also sustained considerable damage in encounters with extreme weather conditions at least twice earlier. In July of 1786, a hurricane swept through the Middle Atlantic region that caused damage from Hampton Roads at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay north into Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It tore the roof from the Meeting House and caused a wall and gallery to collapse. In a sermon delivered two decades later, the Rev. Dr. James Muir described the storm’s visit — God rides on the wings of the wind; sensible of his approach all gives way. It is the homage of nature prostrating before him. July, 1786, gave a display of powers able to crush the boldest offender. A violent hurricane, raised the roof of the Presbyterian church [Meeting House], and tossed it about like the lightest substance. A solid mass of wall was driven in, and in the fall a third of the galleries [the gallery on the side where the wall collapsed], except the pillars, with all the pews below shivered to pieces. When the elders of the church and others came to ascertain the damage, their astonishment and dejection were visible; a judicious member, who had mingled with the crowd, after a moment’s pause, cheerfully exclaimed, ‘Never mind, keep a good heart, all will be well, see the pillars are standing’ (Muir 1812 15-16; italics in original).

A second encounter with severe weather elements caused extensive damage to the windows of the original Meeting House. In June of 1811, a horrendous hail storm, described in the newspaper as "the severest hail-storm ever witnessed by the oldest inhabitants [of Alexandria]", caused considerable damage throughout the town. The Rev. Dr. James Muir provides a first-hand account of this encounter — The weather on the 7th of June, was cloudy with short intervals of sunshine extremely scorching.

About five in the afternoon the sky was overcast; distant thunder was heard, and frequent flashes of lightning seen. A dark cloud rushed forward from the West changing to the North as it approached the town attended with the severest hail-storm ever witnessed by the oldest inhabitants, which, in a narrow vane, raged for fifteen minutes. The hail, or rather the lumps of ice, were of irregular shapes, having sharp points. They weighed several ounces, and in circumference exceeded four inches, although the size was diminished before they could be weighed or measured in consequence of the deluge of rain. They fell with irresistible force; trees were partly stript [stripped] of their foliage, and of large branches; the shingles and slates of several houses were split: — many gardens were destroyed; — The waters of the river were splashed a foot or two upwards and all around; — The bird was killed in its flight, the cattle panic-struck run about seeking shelter: — several citizens were bruised; — Every house in town having windows to the North lost their glass, which lay strewed on the floors, and through every street; — Our church has lost glass to the amount of near three hundred panes (Muir 1812 17-18; italics in original).

If the original Meeting House had the same window configuration as its replacement — 16 panes over 16 panes of glass, i.e., 32 panes of glass, per window — "near three hundred [broken] panes" would have meant that the glass in all of the windows on the structure’s north side would have been destroyed, plus some from other sides as well.

Reconstructed Meeting House

The original Meeting House experienced its most destructive encounter with severe weather elements on the Sunday afternoon of 26 July 1835 — lightning in a turbulent summer storm struck the Meeting House and caused such damage that an essentially new structure was required to replace the original one. The next issue of the newspaper reported — "During the storm of Sunday afternoon last, the lightening struck the steeple [cupola] of the First Presbyterian Church in the first place, and in a few moments the ancient and venerable building was completely enveloped in flames. The fire spread with such rapidity from the steeple [cupola] to the roof, and from the roof to every part of the edifice, that, notwithstanding the most praiseworthy exertions were made by the fire companies and individuals to arrest the progress, there remained in a few hours nothing of the church but its walls" (Alexandria Gazette 28 July 1835).

The replacement structure was completed and dedicated two years later, on 30 July 1837. It incorporated the 60 by 50-foot ground dimensions and 26-foot tall walls of the original, plus an addition to the Fairfax Street end that added space for a narthex and stairs to the galleries. The Alexandria Gazette assessed the replacement structure — "The First Presbyterian Church edifice, rebuilt on the site of that old Church, which was destroyed by lightning about two years ago, was on Sunday last solemnly dedicated to the services of religion. The building is plain in its exterior, but commodious and neat, and its interior chaste and handsome, and well adapted for the convenience of seeing and hearing" (Alexandria Gazette 1 August 1837).

In terms of its architecture, the rebuilt structure embodied the plain meetinghouse style that was not only carried over from the original structure but had existed for generations in numerous other houses of worship throughout urban centers in the Middle Atlantic and New England portions of the Eastern Seaboard. Examples include the local "kindred spirit" Presbyterian house of worship erected the previous decade — Georgetown Presbyterian Church (then known as Bridge Street Presbyterian Church), erected in 1821 on Bridge (now "M") Street just west of its intersection with Pennsylvania Avenue (it was demolished in 1872). Older examples, in earlier established urban centers include St. George’s United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, the "mother church of American Methodism", which dates from the 1760s; and Christ "Old North" Church and Old South Meeting House in Boston, both erected in the 1720s (these three houses of
worship remain in use).

The Alexandria Gazette article’s reference to the rebuilt structure being "well adapted for the convenience of seeing and hearing" refers to the slope of the floor in the first-floor seating area — the floor at the pulpit end of the room is about a foot lower than at the Fairfax Street entrance end. This makes each pew just a little bit lower then the one behind it, thus enhancing both viewing and hearing. It represents perhaps the rebuilt structure’s one "modern" feature, i.e., incorporating an innovation just coming into use. The floors in the worship space of Christ Episcopal Church (built 1773) and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (built 1817) are both flat, producing a different feeling about their interior space and a different functionality.

The reconstructed Meeting House was expanded in 1843 with the addition of an abutting bell tower at its western (burial-ground) side. A new bell, incorporating metal from the fire-destroyed original one, was cast by the Alexandria Iron Foundry of Thomas W. and Richard C. Smith, then located on the eastern side of Royal Street between Wilkes and Gibbon streets (current site of the Safeway store). This foundry also cast the bell for the old Fairfax County Courthouse and both continue to function today. The structure’s front porch and steps, originally of wood, were replaced with granite ones in 1853; they also remain in use to this day.

Amazingly few interior alterations have been made to the Meeting House since its reconstruction in the 1830s. Most have been made to accommodate technological improvements, such as replacing oil lamps with gas lights or introducing air conditioning to lower humidity and temperature during the summer. Changes have also been made to color schemes in response to altering contemporary tastes. Nonetheless, today’s Meeting House appears much as it did when reconstructed in the 1830s — "commodious and neat, chaste and handsome, and well adapted for the convenience of seeing and hearing" to again quote the Gazette — a remarkably unified and chaste visual aesthetic whole.

The most significant visual alterations that have occurred to the Meeting House since its reconstruction in 1837 cluster at the room’s front and in its galleries. The bell tower that was added to the Meeting House outside created space for an apse inside. This new interior space was utilized to house a new pipe organ in 1849. The instrument, which replaced the fire-destroyed 1817 Hilbus organ, was built by Henry Erben of New York City. It remains in use in this same space today, although from 1928 to 1997 it was located in the east gallery, having been relocated there during the renovation that was completed in 1928 in the belief that it was the original Hilbus organ, which in fact had been located in the gallery.

Almost a century after the addition of a bell tower resulted in changes to the interior of the Meeting House, a second structural modification was made to its front interior portion. In 1940, the existing pulpit and steps were reconfigured to their current appearance — an enclosed pulpit with steps curving down from both sides to the floor level. The new pulpit and steps replaced a lectern-style pulpit that sat in the center of an open-stage platform from which steps descended straight out to the sides. The earlier pulpit arrangement is visible in the Historic American Buildings Survey photograph of the Meeting House. The new pulpit was a gift of the Alexandria Association. At the dedication of the new pulpit, it was described as — "a pulpit, which had been missing from the church for many years -- [that was designed] on the basis of such data as was available concerning the appearance of the original and [of] a careful study of Presbyterian pulpits of the colonial period." It was designed by Ward Brown, an architect engaged in Alexandria’s historic preservation efforts during the 1930s, who would serve on the Old and Historic District’s Board of Architectural Review when it was established in 1946.

In 1981, one other structural modification known to have occurred to the Meeting House since the 1830s took place when an entrance/exit door was added in the room’s northwest corner. It was located in one of the four niches that had once been occupied by heating stoves. A step-free exterior ramp leading from the sidewalk at Fairfax Street to the door was added at the same time.

Several other objects of recent vintage in the worship space are the communion table and baptismal font, created for the Meeting House in the early 1950s. The table for the service of the Lord’s Supper was designed by architect E. Townsley Jenkins, and the baptismal font by J. Rowland Snyder. The cross that now sits on the side table was created by the Stieff Silver Company of Baltimore during this same period. No historic antecedents of these objects are known to have existed at the Meeting House. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, tables for serving the Lord’s Supper, at which congregants would have been seated to receive the elements, would have been erected whenever this service was conducted, usually four times a year. Crosses and baptismal fonts were rarely found in Presbyterian places of worship for most of the historic congregation’s existence (Melton 1967, Smith 2001). Baptisms were often conducted among family members and friends at private homes. Crosses, baptismal fonts, and alter-like tables for serving the Lord’s Supper only began to be introduced into Presbyterian churches during the second half of the nineteenth century, when notions of acceptable church architecture among America’s Presbyterians, as among other Protestant denominations, underwent radical reconceptualization.

The open galleries of the reconstructed Meeting House, with their flat-floor spaces, have served the congregation in many different capacities — they have served as a multi-purpose space longer than any other portion of the congregation’s facilities. From 1837 through 1952, they provided the congregation with its only space other than the ground floor of the Meeting House and the great outdoors for meeting space or conducting classes on Sundays. The congregation’s lecture hall, located at the corner of Duke and Royal streets, was considered too far away for such use. For generations, the galleries were simply referred to as "the Sunday School", but they provided space for numerous other functions over the decades — the choir from 1837 to the present; Erben organ from 1929 to 1997; Reuter organ from 1965 to 1997; and offices for clergy and secretary from 1949 to 1952. Today’s pews, which sit on top of raised platforms in the north and south galleries, were installed beginning in 1954. Since 1997, the east gallery has housed the Lively-Fulcher Opus 4 pipe organ. The central portion of the east gallery wall, where the clock is located, was extended slightly when the Lively-Fulcher organ was installed. The clock, original to the first Meeting House, survived the 1835 fire but no longer functions — it’s hands are now set at 10:20 p.m., the hour George Washington died on December 14, 1799, a reminder that Alexandria’s memorial services at his death were conducted at the Meeting House.

Sources of lighting in the Meeting House, other than daylight, have changed regularly over the years in response to the availability of new technologies — electrically powered lights, present since the first decade of the twentieth century, are at least the fourth generation of lighting technology to be utilized. Originally, candles were called upon, and served as the lighting source for so long that the terms "early candlelight" and "candlelight" routinely served to indicate early evening and evening portions of the day. For decades, evening worship services in the Meeting House were announced as occurring at early-candlelight or at candlelight. Whale oil lamps followed candles. Lighting fixtures for both candles and whale oil lamps would have included wall sconces and chandeliers. In 1853, the sperm whale-oil lamps and chandeliers then in use were replaced by a third form of lighting technology — gas. Alexandria’s first gasworks had been constructed at Lee and Oronoco streets in 1851 and the town’s first gas-illuminated street lights were installed in 1855. The wooden standards along the gallery railings that today are topped with candles originally held glass-globe fixtures with burning jets of gas. Glass-globe gas-light fixtures were also suspended directly beneath each of these wooden standards.

Electric lights represent the fourth form of lighting technology for the Meeting House, and most of the fixtures currently in use form the third generation of fixtures utilizing electricity. The first generation of electrical light fixtures was introduced in 1907 — a photograph taken shortly thereafter shows plain milk glass globe fixtures hanging from gallery ceilings along with the still-existing gas-light fixtures. A second generation of electrical light fixtures was installed in conjunction with the 1925-28 restoration — the existing mix of gas and electric light fixtures was replaced by electric reproduction whale-oil ones, visible in the Historic American Buildings Survey photograph of the Meeting House interior. The national fund raising effort that was conducted to restore the Meeting House, which included the whale-oil style light fixtures, received the support of many persons, including Andrew Mellon, then U.S. Secretary of the Treasury; Elihu Root, then president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Secretary of War and of State; and Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The whale-oil style lamps were eventually replaced by a third generation of electrical fixtures. The pewter-on-brass chandelier that currently hangs from the ceiling at the center of the room was produced in the Netherlands and installed in 1960. The brass-with-glass-globe light fixtures along the side aisles and in the narthex were installed as part of the 1987-90 restoration and renovation. The exterior light above the front porch was added then as well.

While the Meeting House, described as "chaste and handsome" in 1835, remains unadorned, its interior space does include visually prominent features that deserve explicit comment. The enclosed slip pews with doors are original to the reconstructed Meeting House. They emulate the older-style enclosed-pew seating of the original Meeting House rather than the open pews generally utilized by the 1830s. Racks for holding hymn books, communion cups, and pencils were added to the pews during the 1950s, with the racks for hymn books being doubled in size in 1980 to accommodate Bibles as well.

Though not visibly prominent, two other features of the enclosed pews are noteworthy. When you enter a pew, you need to step up, and to step down when leaving — the floor inside the enclosed pews is raised three inches above the floor of the room to provide an airspace for better insulation. One other feature of the enclosed pews, which must have been important to some worshippers during the nineteenth century but whose very existence today surprises us, is spitting boxes. Spitting boxes, installed in the pews of "chewers", were drawer-like boxes that were filled with sand and located under the seats of the pews in front of chewers. No doubt spittoons once could be found in the room’s corners as well.

A stone tablet memorial to the Rev. Dr. James Muir (1757-1820), who served the congregation for thirty-one years from 1789 to 1820, is located on the room’s north wall. It was re-erected at this location at the reconstruction in 1837 to be near Rev. Muir’s burial site under the original pulpit along the north wall. A second stone tablet, located on the south wall, was placed there in the 1880s to honor the Rev. Dr. Elias Harrison (1790-1863), who served the congregation for forty-six years, first as collegiate minister with Rev. Muir from 1817 to 1820 and then as sole minister from 1820 to 1863, and Robert Bell (1809-1885), who served the congregation as an elder for forty years and as superintendent of the Sunday School for over fifty years.

Recognition and Preservation of the Meeting House

The significance of the Meeting House, both in terms of the structure’s architecture and of actions taken by the congregation that are associated with it, has long been formally recognized both by the congregation itself and by numerous organizations outside the congregation. It is a National Historic Place — a structure considered "significant in American History, architecture, archaeology, engineering and culture [and] worthy of preservation". This designation, conferred by the U.S. Department of the Interior, includes listing in the federal government’s National Register of Historic Sites (plaque on facade of Meeting House; National Register of Historic Places website). The Meeting House and its churchyard are located within the Alexandria Historic Landmark District, a U.S. Department of the Interior designated National Historic Landmark.

The Meeting House is also a Historic Landmark of the Commonwealth of Virginia, designated by the Historic Resources Board of the Commonwealth of Virginia (plaque in narthex of Meeting House; Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission 1976). It is a Presbyterian Historic Site, so designated by the Presbyterian Historical Society of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. (plaque in narthex of Meeting House; Presbyterian Historical Society 1982-99). Locally, it is recognized not only as a historic structure but as one that has "maintained its historic and architectural integrity" by the Historic Alexandria Foundation (plaque on facade of Meeting House). It was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey, a program initiated in 1933 by the U.S. Department of the Interior to document the nation’s architectural heritage, and was photographically documented in 1936 and 1939 (images at Library of Congress website). The Meeting House is regularly included in surveys of historic structures (e.g., Brock 1930, Lindsey 1931, Rines 1936, U.S. Writers’ Program 1939 and 1940, Rawlings 1963, American Institute of Architects 1965, Bodine 1967, American Institute of Planers 1976, Cox 1976, Cromie 1979, Northern Virginia History Officials 1981, Davis and Rawlings 1985, Seale 2000, Shively 2001, Massey 2003), and most recently appeared in the richly illustrated The Ideals Guide to Historic Places of Worship in the United States (Skarmeas 2004).

Concern for preservation of the architectural integrity of the Meeting House has been active within the congregation for at least three-quarters of a century. During this period, three major restoration/renovations have been undertaken. The first such project was initiated in 1925 with a national fundraising campaign to "make needed repairs, that the church may stand for more than another century, a landmark of the days of Washington, of early Presbyterianism in America, and a symbol of united North and South-- [I]t is by urgings of descendants of the seceding Southern brethren of the Old First Church that the crumbling steeple [i.e., bell tower] of the ancient edifice is to rear itself once more to its full height and proclaim that ‘there is no more strife—no enmity which can not be forgotten’.’’ (Washington Post 22 February 1925) Consulting architect for this project was Clarence Loweii Harding of the District of Columbia. (Gordon 1929).

Among the many tasks undertaken with the 1920s restoration/renovation was the installation of a slate roof by Joseph Rodgers; replacement of the existing gas and electric lighting systems with electric reproduction colonial oil lamps; reconditioning and relocation of the Erben organ from the apse to the east gallery; repairs to the interior floors and walls, repainting of the interior in a "buff" color; placement of a bronze plaque over the builder’s stone in the Fairfax Street facade that read "Old Presbyterian Meeting House – Erected 1774"; clean up of the burial ground and churchyard; erection of a white picket fence along Royal Street; and the preparation of numerous framed images of pages from historic congregation records, of individuals associated with the Meeting House, and the "unfinished" Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, that were placed on walls throughout the interior. When the restoration was completed in 1928, the dedication celebration included a nationally broadcast radio program from the Meeting House that featured Major General John A. Lejeune, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and John A. Saunders, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

For the next twenty years, the Meeting House served both as a place of worship and as a museum celebrating Alexandria’s connections to George Washington and to its colonial past. Its prominent stature as a museum linked with George Washington was recognized by the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission, which presented it with a Joseph Nollekens’ bust of George Washington in 1932. The Commission presented other copies of the Nollekens’ bust to the White House, Justices of the Supreme Court, U.S. Senators and Representatives, and state governors for display in their capital buildings. The Meeting House’s copy, originally displayed in one of the side niches, is now located in the library in Elliot House. The "museum" phase extended through 1949 and was something the new congregation worked to move beyond — text of the first brochure they prepared for visitors began with "A shrine becomes a living church-- You have crossed the threshold of one of America’s most historic and beautiful churches."

A second major restoration/renovation was undertaken immediately after an independent congregation reoccupied the Meeting House and its associated property in 1949. Tasks undertaken as part of this project, which took place during 1949 and 1950, included numerous repairs to the exterior brickwork, roof, windows, interior walls, floors, and clock on the wall of the east gallery; replacement of supports for the bell in the tower; replacement of the pot-bellied coal stoves with a forced-air gas furnace that included installation of air ducts; painting with a color explicitly created for the Meeting House by the Glidden Paint Co. in response to research undertaken to discover original paint colors; and a cleaning and tuning of the Erben organ, plus the installation of an electric blower for the bellows (after a century, "playing" the organ became a one-person job, as the task no longer included the hand pumping of air into the bellows!).

Consultants on this project included Walter Macomber, then resident restoration architect at Mount Vernon and previously the architect at Colonial Williamsburg (1928-33); Frederick L. Rath, Jr., director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Helen Duprey Bullock also of the National Trust; and Worth Bailey, architectural historian and curator at Mount Vernon. When the project was completed, U. S. Grant III, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, singled out the Meeting House in a national address as a place where "after years of what President Cleveland called ‘innocuous desuetude’ [it] has recently been rescued by its own daughter church, the Second Presbyterian, and has correctly and lovingly been restored and opened again for worship" (Washington Post 5 May 1952).

In 1987-90, the congregation undertook a third restoration/renovation of the Meeting House, which again included both exterior and interior phases. A detailed preliminary investigation of the structural integrity of the Meeting House guided several subsequent actions, including the repair of structural supports in the roof and replacement of the slate roofing, which had been put in place during the 1925-28 restoration, with sheet metal. Other work to the exterior included re-pointing and cleaning of the brick; replacement of the front doors; replacement of roof gutters; removal of the bronze plaque that had covered the front facade builder’s stone since the 1925-28 restoration; replacement of the two exterior sets of stairs at the base of the bell tower; and the repair and painting of windows, bell tower woodwork, etc. Interior work included replacement of electric light fixtures in the aisles, narthex, stairs, choir loft, and outside front facade; replacement of carpeting, first installed in 1959; renovation of rest rooms; renovation of the pulpit to make its upper section removable; installation of a new sound system; and the repairing and repainting of interior surfaces. In 1990, the congregation received a Merit Award for "extraordinary achievement in historic preservation/renovation" for this project from the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Flounder House:
Erected in 1787 to serve as a manse (minister’s residence), and is believed to be Alexandria’s earliest structure to be constructed in this unusual ‘flounder’ architectural style. Flounder-style structures are characterized by a windowless side wall located immediately adjacent to the property line and a half-gable roof; the resulting "one-sided" structure resembles the "one-sided" flounder fish, hence the name. The building was repaired and renovated in 1952 to provide space for administrative offices, meeting rooms, library, and a kitchen. It now houses the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium, hosts AA meetings, and houses the church's historical archives.

The Structure today known as Flounder House, on the Royal Street side of the churchyard, was erected by the congregation to serve as a parsonage, or manse (minister’s residence), in 1787 and is believed to be Alexandria’s earliest structure to be constructed in this unusual ‘flounder’ architectural style.

The freestanding, two and one-half-story, center-hall residential structure originally included dormers in the roof and provided two and one-half above-ground floors of living space plus a basement. The Rev. Dr. Muir described it as a "commodious house" when he resided there with his wife, Elizabeth Muir, three daughters, son, and at least one servant at the close of the eighteenth century. Our sense of "appropriate dwelling space" has altered dramatically in two centuries (Larkin 2006).

Flounder House was constructed by Robert Brockett, master builder and brick maker who also built portions of Market Hall and numerous other structures in Alexandria. Brockett was paid £268 for the structure. He was a member of the congregation and is buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery. Flounder-style structures are characterized by a windowless side wall located immediately adjacent to the property line and a half-gable roof, with the windowless property-line wall being taller than the one facing the inside of the lot. The resulting "one-sided" structural character inspired them to be named for the similarly "one-sided" flounder fish. The style provides as much usable open space on narrow urban lots as possible, and is similar to the intense zero-lot-line residential developments that are popular in some parts of the country today.

Old Town Alexandria is known for its large number of flounder-style residences, but they may also still be found in those cities, ranging from Philadelphia to St. Louis, that experienced building booms during the late eighteenth century and have had at least some of their inner-city residential areas survive. Alexandria once possessed as many as seventy-five of these unique structures, but today that number has diminished to fewer than twenty.

The Flounder House was first occupied as a parsonage by the Rev. Dr. Isaac Stockton Keith and subsequently was used by all clergy through closure of the historic congregation either as a residence or as a rental property when they chose to live elsewhere. Following the historic congregation’s closure in 1899, Flounder House was extended to the east. It was used as a rental property for the next fifty years.

When the congregation was re-established in 1949, it first attended to the physical condition of the Meeting House, but then quickly turned to the badly deteriorated Flounder House. To transform Flounder House into spaces that would accommodate mid-twentieth century uses, the newly established congregation undertook its second major restoration-renovation of a historic structure — substantial repairs were made to the original portion of the structure and it was thoroughly renovated; the rather haphazardly constructed eastern extension of 1902 was removed and replaced; and the eastern end of the building was extended slightly to create space for a second stairwell. This undertaking was completed in September 1952 and provided space for administrative offices, meeting rooms, library, and kitchen, none of which had ever existed before!

During the subsequent half century, spaces within Flounder House have been altered several times to accommodate increases in the number of staff members and in response to altered functional requirements. Major changes occurred, for instance, when the Education Building provided much needed new space when it was completed in 1957. Its most recent renovation occurred when church staff offices were relocated from Flounder House to Elliot House following that structure’s restoration and extension in 2005. The reconfiguration made then continues to the present — three large meeting rooms, one on each floor; the Archives, in a room that originally served as the parlor of the parsonage; an office, currently being utilized by the Alexandria Tutoring Consortium, in a room that served as a study for pastors from 1952 to 2006; and a partial kitchen in the lower level. The numerous alterations that have occurred to what was once the private yard of the Flounder House are discussed in the section on the Courtyard.

Education Building:
The Education Building, constructed in 1957, was the first new structure erected by the congregation in over 120 years. The building is filled on Sundays with classes and child care. During the week, it is filled with eighty children plus teachers from the Meeting House Cooperative Preschool, the successor to the kindergarten and pre-school programs that have been operated at the Meeting House since 1954.

The Education Building, which faces Royal Street and the interior courtyard, was the first new structure erected by the congregation in over 120 years. New in 1957, it has already served the congregation for over half a century.

The Education Building was dedicated on June 12, 1957, eight years to the day after the first worship service was celebrated by the re-established congregation in 1949. When planning for the new building began in 1956, the congregation numbered just over 600 members, with 300-plus students enrolled in Sunday School classes. A building was planned that would accommodate the needs of a congregation of 1,200 members, but a year after its completion, Session Minutes note — "Contrary to expectations, the matter of space for the Church School [in the new Education Building] is already a critical problem!"

The first plan for an Education Building as a supplement to space gains that occurred with the restoration/refurnishing of Flounder House was made in 1955 by the architect Frank W. Cole, a member of the congregation. The structure he proposed was a mirror image of Flounder House, with its rear wall along the south property line (bordering what is now a parking lot). The structure’s relatively narrow flounder-style design enabled the historically open view of the Meeting House from Royal Street to be retained. The two flounder-style buildings were to be connected by an arched brick arcade paralleling Royal Street, which would have created an open courtyard similar to the one that exists today. Based upon a desire for more usable space in the new building, a second plan was developed, also by Frank W. Cole. This second plan, which produced the building we have today, mirrors the architectural style of the Meeting House rather than Flounder House.

Alterations to the interior of the building have occurred several times during its half century of use. Most notable was the renovation undertaken in 1993 — the courtyard entrance was reconfigured to include a set of two curving stairs rather than the original single stair; Fellowship Hall and the kitchen were renovated; and the exterior ramp down to Fellowship Hall from the courtyard was added. Nonetheless, today’s structure would be quite familiar to anyone who had attended its 1957 dedication. The building includes the large meeting room named Fellowship Hall and a kitchen on the lower level. The first floor includes an office and four rooms; the second floor accommodates six rooms; and the third floor, two rooms and storage. The third-floor space, now commonly referred to as "Heaven", remained unfinished until 1989, when several other interior renovations were also made. The image of the Education Building in the ground-breaking brochure includes dormer windows in the roof, indicating that the architect planned the third floor as fully usable space from the outset — three decades later that plan was fulfilled.

The Education Building is filled to capacity on Sundays with classes and with child care in the nursery during worship services. It is abuzz weekdays as well, filled with eighty children plus teachers from the Meeting House Co-operative Preschool. The Co-operative Preschool is the successor to the kindergarten and pre-school programs that have been operated at the Meeting House since a kindergarten program was established "as an extension of the religious education program of the Church" by Louise Maechtle in 1954. The mission established for the building by the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Phifer at its dedication continues to reverberate — "While our new Education Building will be used in various ways by our entire congregation, its most important and regular use will be for the purpose of teaching our children those attitudes toward God and man that shall make them finer people and, through them, shall make the world at least a little bit better place. It is not a little thing to have a part in such a program." (Old Presbyterian Meeting House 1957).

Burial Ground
The churchyard burial ground, located to the north and west of the Meeting House, served as the final resting place for the remains of Alexandria’s Presbyterians from the town’s earliest days through 1809. Among those buried here are men and women from the families that founded the town of Alexandria. Forty-three Revolutionary War Patriots are buried in the burial ground and Presbyterian Cemetery, combined the largest number of such interments in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Over 300 persons are believed interred in the burial ground, but only about 40 gravestones are present today.

The churchyard burial ground, located to the north and west of the Meeting House, served as the final resting place for the remains of Alexandria’s Presbyterians from the town’s earliest days through 1809. In that year, the congregation established the Presbyterian Cemetery on Hamilton Lane in response to an 1804 ordinance from Alexandria’s Common Council that prohibited further burials within the city limits. The churchyard had been conveyed as a gift to the congregation by Richard and Eleanor Arell in 1773, but evidence indicates that interments preceded that date, perhaps by many years. Records of individuals who were laid to rest in the burial ground prior to the land’s transfer to the Meeting House include Sarah Fairfax Carlyle (d. 1761), the first wife of John Carlyle, and Archibald Thompson, who died in August 1772. The practice of burying on lots prior to their use for constructing a place of worship occurred fairly frequently during this period.

Church records indicate that at least 300 persons were interred in the churchyard during the half century or so that it served as the primary burial site for members of the congregation. Among those buried here are men and women from the families that founded the town of Alexandria — Alexanders, Carlyles, Ramsays, and others; the Rev. William Thom, the congregation’s first minister and Mary Thom, his mother; members of the family of the Rev. Dr. James Muir, the congregation’s third minister; and numerous veterans of the French and Indian War and of the Revolutionary War. The Tomb of an Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution is also located in this burial ground (see below). Several memorial services are held throughout the year at this site. In addition, the burial ground holds the remains of members of the Society of the Cincinnati and founding members of Alexandria-Washington Masonic Lodge No. 22, which George Washington served as Master. The last person known to be interred here was Elizabeth Love Muir, daughter of the Rev. James and Mrs. Elizabeth Muir, in 1876.

Two plaques, located in the northeast corner of the burial ground, memorialize those interred here. One specifically honors the many Revolutionary War Patriots who are buried here. It was emplaced in 2006 by the George Washington Chapter, Virginia Society Sons of the American Revolution and the St. Andrew’s Society of Washington, D.C. The 43 Revolutionary War dead in the burial ground and the Presbyterian Cemetery combined equal the largest number of such interments in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The second plaque, honoring all who were laid to rest in the burial ground, was erected by the congregation in 2009.

Only about 40 gravestones are present in the burial ground today. This figure, rather than a number in the hundreds which would more closely represent the actual number of burials, is the result of several factors. Many burials were of infants who died within a year of birth and were interred before being formally named, so many of their graves were never marked. Further, the memorial stones erected by the strong Calvinist Presbyterians tended to be plain and free of artistic embellishment, much like the Meeting House itself. Not considered visually interesting as time passed, they were disregarded and not maintained or replaced as they deteriorated. The space allocated to the burial ground has diminished over time. Gravesites were covered over and lost when the Meeting House was rebuilt and expanded during the 1830s and 1840s, and others were lost when the northern property line was adjusted southward. The location of this line was adjusted several times prior to erection of the brick wall that has defined it since 1932. As just one illustration of the contraction of this space, the remains of a soldier from the American Revolution were unearthed during the expansion of St. Mary’s sanctuary in 1826. They were reinterred in the Meeting House burial ground, and the Tomb of an Unknown Soldier of the Revolutionary War was erected in 1929 to mark his grave by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In 2008, the Meeting House congregation established a new committee to oversee the churchyard burial ground. In 2011, this Committee prepared an accurate new map of the site and used it as the basis for a new brochure. The Committee also conducted a thorough survey of the burial ground and developed an assessment of the condition of each gravestone and fragment. These data formed the basis for a comprehensive three-phase conservation plan for the site. In the spring of 2015, the Meeting House received a grant from the Historic Alexandria Foundation for partial support of this conservation work. With these funds, a further grant from the Presbyterian Cemetery Board, and accumulated monies in hand, the Committee immediately began to address the most pressing issues. In September 2015, workers from Manassas Granite & Marble — experts in the conservation and repair of grave markers using approved methods — completed the Phase I conservation work.

Tomb of an Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution

This tomb honors an unidentified soldier whose remains were unearthed and reburied at this site in 1826. It honors as well the many other patriots who died helping secure Independence for the United States of America, and especially those who now rest in unmarked graves. The tomb is regularly honored with services conducted by the National Society of the Children of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, Society of the Cincinnati, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and others.

Epitaph to the Unknown Soldier Carved atop the Memorial:
Here lies a soldier of the Revolution whose identity is known but to God.
His was an idealism that recognized a Supreme Being,
that planted religious liberty on our shores, that overthrew despotism,
that established a people’s government, that wrote a Constitution setting metes and bounds
of delegated authority, that fixed a standard of value upon men above gold
and lifted high the torch of civil liberty along the pathway of mankind.
In ourselves his soul exists as part of ours, his memory’s mansion.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution, located in the churchyard burial ground, honors an unidentified soldier whose remains were unearthed just to the north of its current tomb and reburied at its current site in 1826. It honors not only the single unknown individual, but all the Patriots who helped secure Independence for the United States of America, especially those who now rest in unmarked graves. It reminds us as well of the gratitude that we owe to all who have served to enable the United States to remain a free and independent nation.

Creation of the Memorial:
In 1826, during construction of the original portion of a sanctuary for St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church (now Basilica of St. Mary), the body of an unidentified man, clothed in a Revolutionary War uniform, was unearthed. The body was then reinterred within the current bounds of the churchyard burial ground. The memory that the remains of an unidentified soldier had been reburied at this site was carried into the twentieth century by Mary Gregory Powell (1847-1928), a member of the congregation and historian of the Mount Vernon chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Her father, William Gregory (1789-1875), had come to Alexandria from Scotland in 1807 and had served the congregation many years as an elder and member of the church committee. Mary Gregory had placed flowers on the unmarked grave of the unidentified soldier as a child.

Several events that took place during the 1920s influenced the creation of the memorial. One was the memorialization of soldiers who had died in World War I and remained unidentified. On the anniversary of the signing of the treaty that ended World War I, Armistice Day 1920, memorials to Unknowns were dedicated in Great Britain in 1920 and in France in 1919. The United States dedicated its memorial to an Unknown of that war at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 1921. The sarcophagus-style monument that now sits atop the burial vault of the Tomb of the Unknowns was added in 1932.

The 1920s also witnessed a surge of interest in honoring and preserving our nation’s colonial heritage. Among Alexandria’s earliest Colonial-revival preservation efforts was the restoration of the Meeting House, which began in 1925. As that project drew to its completion, Mary G. Powell contacted John B. Gordon, chair of the restoration committee, about honoring the unknown soldier in the churchyard burial ground in some manner. The decision was made to formally mark the gravesite. Leadership in that task was provided by Alexandria’s American Legion Post No. 24.

Dedication of the Memorial:
On February 22, 1928, a temporary marker was placed at the gravesite in conjunction with Alexandria’s annual celebration of George Washington’s birthday. Dedication services held that day followed traditions dating from the colonial period – participants initially gathered at Gadsby’s Tavern and then joined in a processional walk through the city’s streets to the Meeting House, where a service was conducted. Mary G. Powell, in her eighties and ailing, dedicated a temporary wooden marker. A permanent marble tabletop memorial was dedicated the following year.

The permanent memorial was created through the leadership of the National Society of the Children of the American Revolution and Mrs. Josiah A. Van Orsdel, the society’s president. It was dedicated on Lexington-Concord Day, April 19, 1929, with services in the Meeting House and at the site of the memorial. The service in the Meeting House was led by Mrs. Van Orsdel and included two addresses – “Story of the Discovery of the Grave,” by John B. Gordon, chair of the committee that had led the recent restoration of the Meeting House, and “157,000 American Unknown War Dead Here and Abroad,” by James W. Good, U.S. Secretary of War. William Tyler Page, Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and author of “The American’s Creed,” read the “Epitaph of the Unknown Soldier,” which he had prepared for the tabletop memorial (text above). Music was provided by the U.S. Army Band, which also joined with the church’s historic 1849 Erben organ to lead the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. Following the service, the assemblage moved to the gravesite, accompanied by the solemn tolling of the church bell, where numerous wreaths were placed at the foot of the memorial by patriotic and military organizations. The -minute program was broadcast live by Washington’s local radio station, WRC, to a national audience.

We remain ever grateful to those who first secured our Independence and to those who continue to maintain it.

The Memorial Today:
The Unknown Soldier continues to be honored regularly by visitors and with services conducted by the Children of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, Society of the Cincinnati, First Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Legion of Honor of Shriners International, National Sojourners of Freemasonry, and other groups. Visitation to the churchyard burial ground and Unknown Memorial is unrestricted. Visitors are welcome to tour the Meeting House, Monday-Thursday 9-4, Friday 9-12, and Sunday 9:30-12 – contact the church office in neighboring Elliot House.

Churchyard Burial Ground:
The churchyard burial ground is the final resting place of some 300 persons dating from the colonial and early national periods. Few of the graves in the churchyard remain marked. The burial ground contains the remains of the congregation's first minister, the Rev. William Thom (1750-1773). The congregation’s third minister, the Rev. James Muir, D.D. (1757-1820), is buried in the Meeting House. Others buried in the churchyard include John Carlyle (1720-1780), founding trustee and first overseer of Alexandria; Dr. Robert Creighton (1734-1801), physician with General Braddock’s forces in the French and Indian War; Dr. James Craik (1730-1814), surgeon general in the Continental Army and confidant and physician of George Washington; William Hunter (1731-1792), mayor of Alexandria and founder of the St. Andrew’s Society; Lewis Nicola (1717-1807), Colonel in the Corps of Invalids of the Continental Army; numerous veterans of the French and Indian War; twenty-seven Patriots of the Revolutionary War; and many founding members of Alexandria-Washing-ton Masonic Lodge No. 22 that George Washington served as founding master.

After 1809, members of the congregation were buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery located one mile west of here. Sixteen Patriots of the Revolutionary War are buried there.

Elliot House
In the early 1840s, this lot was purchased by the Charles B. and Susan Unruh family, who erected as their residence a wooden free-standing two-story structure in the Greek Revival style. That structure continues as the front portion of today’s Elliot House. Sherrie and Jean Robertson Elliot donated the house to the church in 1999. The church restored and expanded it for use as administrative offices and meeting rooms, winning an Award of Merit for "outstanding achievements in historic resources" from the American Institute for Architects in 2006.

Elliot House has served the Meeting House congregation only since 2005, but as is generally the case with Meeting House structures, it possesses a long and unique story all its own. The Elliot House lot at the northwest corner of Fairfax and Wolfe streets was created with the division of lots associated with first expansion of Alexandria in 1763, and was once owned by Richard and Eleanor Arell, who donated the lot adjoining it to the north for use of the Meeting House congregation. In the early 1840s, it was purchased by the Charles B. and Susan Unruh family, who had moved to Alexandria from Germantown, Pennsylvania. Charles and his oldest son were blacksmiths with a shop located at the corner of Duke and Union streets. The Unruh family erected their residence at 323 South Fairfax Street — a wooden free-standing two-story structure in the Greek Revival style — by at least 1842. That structure continues as the front portion of today’s Elliot House. It is the only major structure to have been erected on this corner lot, although several small ones may have preceded it.

Among the many residents of this structure since it was built by the Unruhs in the 1840s were several who were members of the Meeting House congregation. Robert W. Bell, Jr., who purchased the property in the 1860s and lived here into the 1880s, served for many years on both the Meeting House Church Committee and the governing board of the Presbyterian Cemetery. Alexandria’s famous City Atlas (Hopkins 1875) depicts the lot during this period as including the residence with a two-story extension at its northwest corner and a frame stable in the northwest corner of the yard. Robert Bell worked initially in the family’s printing-stationer-bookseller business — Robert Bell and Sons at 61 King Street — and later as a wood dealer and as surveyor for the City of Alexandria.

Several photographs of the structure from the first half of the twentieth century survive — during the mid 1920s, it was photographed along with nine other Alexandria buildings for an article in Progressive Architecture (Saylor 1926); and in 1939, it was photographed for the Historic American Buildings Survey, a project of the U.S. Department of the Interior to document the nation’s architectural treasures. In 1939, it was known as "Crocker House". During this period, the home was occupied by a New-Deal couple from Missouri — the Honorable Harry W. Blair, Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Department of Justice, and the Honorable Emily Newell Blair, suffragist and chair of the U.S. Consumers Advisory Board.

In 1960, the house was purchased by R. Sherrard "Sherrie" Elliot (1901-1987) and Jean Robertson Elliot (1901-1999), when they moved to Alexandria from Tarrytown, New York. Sherrie Elliot, a financier, served as vice-president of Financial General Corporation and on the board of several local banks. He was also an elder and trustee of the Meeting House congregation. Jean Elliot was active in numerous Alexandria organizations, especially ones relating to the town’s history, and published the well-received collection of poems, A Starrier Coldness. Her poems also served as the text for Alexandria Suite, a musical work for mixed chorus and chamber orchestra or keyboard composed by Russell Woollen for the Alexandria Choral Society and debuted at the Meeting House in 1987. She was named Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1977 and of the City of Alexandria in 1979, and played a leading role in the Alexandria Library Company, which held its annual lectures in the Meeting House during the 1960s and 1970s.

The Elliots presented their home as a gift to the Meeting House in 1978, retaining rights to lifetime occupancy. When Jean Elliot died in 1999, the Meeting House prepared plans to restore the original structure, construct an addition, and create a new side-yard garden. In conjunction with this project, a formal archaeological investigation of the yard was undertaken and a former well and a cistern were unearthed. Excavations produced numerous artifacts, which are now stored with the city’s Alexandria Archaeology (Alexandria Archaeology n.d., Jirikowic et al. 2004). The restored and expanded Elliot House today includes original rooms on the first floor — parlor and library — and on the second floor — minister’s study and conference room — plus offices for church staff and meeting rooms in the addition and on the lower level.

Elliot House has been recognized as an Old Town structure that has maintained its historic and architectural integrity by the Historic Alexandria Foundation (plaque located on its Fairfax Street facade). It was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of the Interior (photographed in 1939) and other accounts of historic architecture (Saylor 1926, Davis et al. 1946, Cox 1976). An Award of Merit for "outstanding achievements in historic resources" was presented by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute for Architects to the Meeting House congregation for its restoration/renovation of the original portion of the structure and its extension in 2006.

Presbyterian Cemetery

This active seven-acre burial ground, located a mile west of the Meeting House, was established by the congregation in 1809, in response to the 1804 Alexandria ordinance forbidding further burials within the town limits. When founded, the cemetery was located in open countryside, just across the boundary line between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia, of which Alexandria was then a part. The rear portion neighbors the Alexandria National Cemetery, created as one of the initial national cemeteries in July 1862.

The Presbyterian Cemetery, a seven-acre burial ground located on Hamilton Lane one mile west of the Meeting House, was established by the congregation in 1809. Prior to that date, congregation members were interred in the churchyard burial ground.

The Presbyterian Cemetery was created in response to a yellow fever epidemic that swept through Alexandria in 1803, killed hundreds of citizens, and overwhelmed the town and church burial grounds.

In 1804, The Common Council passed an ordinance forbidding the sale of any additional burial plots within the town limits after March of that year and then passed a subsequent ordinance in 1809 banning all burials within the town limits.

When founded, the location of the cemetery was open countryside in Fairfax County, just across the boundary line between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia, of which Alexandria was then a part. Later annexed and now part of the City of Alexandria, the cemetery is located in the historic and active Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, which includes 13 cemeteries within its 80 acres.

The Presbyterian Cemetery, a seven-acre burial ground located on Hamilton Lane a mile west of the Meeting House, was established by the congregation in 1809. Prior to that date, congregation members were interred in the churchyard Burial Ground. The cemetery was created in response to the passage of an 1804 Common Council ordinance forbidding further burials within the town limits. When founded, the cemetery was located in open countryside, just across the boundary line between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia, of which Alexandria was then a part. The rear portion neighbors the Alexandria National Cemetery, created as one of the initial seventeen national cemeteries in July 1862.

The history of the Presbyterian Cemetery can be divided into four periods. The first period extends from 1809 to the beginning of the Civil War. The second, from 1861 to the end of the nineteenth century, saw the end of the Civil War, the ascendancy of Second Presbyterian Church, and the eventual decline of the Meeting House. During the half-century from 1899 to 1949 neither the Meeting House nor the Presbyterian Cemetery received much attention until the mid 1920s. Then, Second Presbyterian Church led a major restoration of the old Meeting House, and the Court appointed a group of prominent Alexandrians to oversee cemetery operations. The Meeting House was re-colonized by members of Second Presbyterian in 1949, and both the church and the cemetery have since experienced a true renaissance.

In 1960, the late Reverend Dr. William Randolph Sengel was called to become the ninth pastor of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House. He became interested in the Presbyterian Cemetery, felt that the Meeting House should reclaim it, and worked gradually and patiently toward this end over the next two decades. In January 1999, the Presbyterian Cemetery once again became a part of the ministry of the Old Presbyterian Meeting House. It operates today as an independent entity overseen by a Presbyterian Cemetery Board under the authority of the Session of the Meeting House.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, to meet a growing demand for a facility suitable for the interment of cremated remains, the Presbyterian Cemetery Board constructed a columbarium at the base of the U-shaped roadway through the cemetery. Finished in early 2008, the graceful limestone-and-granite structure stands more than five feet high. Its north and south wings house 192 niches, and space is available to expand it in later years, if needed, to at least double the current size.

Alexandria’s Presbyterian Cemetery is neither the largest nor the oldest cemetery in the United States, but it is of particular interest because the history reflected in its graves extends back in time to the origin of our country, from a vantage point intimately connected with the nation’s capital. A cross-section of Alexandria’s citizenry, as represented primarily in its Presbyterian congregations, has been buried there. Some were merchants, some were ship’s captains, and many were veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, including those who served for both the North and South. Several gravestones indicate long-term service as elders of the Presbyterian Church, some extending to decades. Among the church leaders are the Reverend Dr. Elias Harrison, the congregation's fourth minister, and members of his family. In addition, a half-dozen mayors of Alexandria, numerous members of the city's governing council, and at least one member of the U.S. House of Representatives (Lewis McKenzie), are interred in its hallowed ground.

Organs at the Meeting House:
Prior to the installation of the church’s first pipe organ, congregational singing and chanting of psalms was unaccompanied or supported by a string instrument.

In 1817, Jacob Hilbus and Henry Harrison of Washington, DC built and installed the church’s first organ. This organ was destroyed in the 1835 fire and was replaced in 1849 by an organ built by Henry Erben of New York City, which was installed in the apse behind the pulpit. This organ was relocated to the rear balcony in 1927. The Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas installed an organ on either side of the Erben in 1965. In 1997, the Erben organ was returned to its original location in the apse, the Reuter organ was donated to a local congregation, and a new instrument by Lively-Fulcher Organ Builders was installed in the rear balcony.

Lively-Fulcher Organ Builders, 1997 (Balcony)

Mark Lively and Paul Fulcher have each been building organs for more than thirty years. Their goal is simply stated: To build a small number of organs, one at a time, that are of the highest artistic quality using the finest materials available.

Mark Lively has studied music, art, history, and electrical engineering. In 1976 he established the first company in the United States to utilize Computer Aided Design (CAD) in the construction of pipe organs. In 1989 he became Tonal Director of the venerable English firm of J. W. Walker and Sons. Subsequently, he was appointed Artistic Director.

Paul Fulcher, a native of England, studied piano from an early age. His training in organ building includes a formal English apprenticeship program with J. W. Walker specializing in the voicing of pipes. He worked at Walker and Sons for twenty years, eventually becoming Head Voicer and Joint Tonal Director with Mark Lively. During this period, Lively and Fulcher were responsible for building and voicing scores of organs all over the world.

Now having joined forces as partners in the US, the Lively-Fulcher organ in the Meeting House (Opus 4) has mechanical key action with a detached console and electric stop action. The mahogany case features polished tin façade (front) pipes with carved pipe shades. The organ has 31 stops, 35 ranks, and 2026 pipes.

Henry Erben, 1849 (Apse):
Henry Erben, born in 1800, was son of Peter Erben, a distinguished New York City organist of Trinity Church. At the age of seventeen, he was apprenticed to organ builder Thomas Hall, and by 1821 was a partner in the company. Upon his death, Hall’s name was dropped from the company and business for Erben was most promising. By 1845, 153 instruments had been built including six located outside the United States. From 1847 to 1863, a branch facility was maintained in Baltimore MD for the distribution of organs to the South. When Erben died in May 1884, his obituary in the New York Tribune stated that he had built 1734 organs in his career.

The Erben organ at the Meeting House is a reflection of English organs of the period. Eight-foot stops are divided on a single manual. A pedal stop was added a few years after its 1849 installation; in 1997 the pedal board and pedal bourdon were removed into storage.