Reid Gravesite

Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

REID GRAVESITE
Jerusalem Baptist Church Cemetery
Fairfax Station, VA USA

When he wrote his will, James Reid requested that he be laid to rest “on the land of Noah Martin, just above his spring on the right of the lane as he goes from his house to the court house between the two cherry trees” (Will Book Q, page 51). Today this spot is deep in the woods along the south side of New Guinea Road at its intersection with Talon Court in the Woodylynn area of Burke.

In the 1970s, the owner of the site wanted to develop it and plans were made to move James Reid’s grave to a more suitable location. Jerusalem Baptist Church in Fairfax Station, whose first pastor had been Reid’s heir, agreed to reinter the remains in the church cemetery. After verifying that no one else was buried at the site, that there had been no interment, visitation, or maintenance in the past 25 years, and that there were no reserved rights to the cemetery, a court order was granted on 8 September 1975, for the disinterment, transit and reinterment of the remains of James Reid. The court order was not acted upon until 27 April 1994, nineteen years after the court's decision, when the remains and gravemarkers were removed from the woods and laid in the ground at Jerusalem Baptist Church Cemetery (see index).

James Reid’s large and impressive gravestone has been vandalized and broken over the years. The inscription on the gravestone is now illegible. Funds are available for a new marker which will bear James Reid’s name and dates of birth, death, and reinterment. This will be placed at the new gravesite. According to information on file in the Virginia Room of the Fairfax City Regional Library, the original inscription read as follows:

In memory of
Elder JAMES REID,
A diligent and successful Minister
of the Gospel,
of the Baptist denomination.
He was born the 30th. of April, 1788,
And finished his earthly course
the 3rd. of August, 1830,
aged 42 years & 4 months.
His life was devoted to the glory
of God and the salvation of his
fellow men;
and while a numerous circle of
Christian friends mourn his
early removal, they are consoled
with the conviction that their
loss is his eternal gain.
“Blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord.”
“My flesh shall slumber under ground,
Till the last trumpet's joyful sound,
Then burst the chains with sweet surprise,
And in my Saviour's image rise.”