Quote:
Originally posted by Sheila Ann:
Now that I did I figured I'd add my two cents! I was a 30-year resident of Fairfax County VA before moving to Winchester VA, the burial place (under(!) Christ Episcopal Church, Winchester) of the 6th Lord Fairfax (the bachelor one!). It was my understanding that Fairfax the 6th was the one for whom the county was named but...the Fairfax name was so prominent in the region that it was a 'given' that Fairfax should be its name.
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OK History 102 students wake up at the back there Sheila!!
I googled on and found successivrely:-
http://www.fxva.com/fxva/history.html
"1649, King Charles II of England granted all of the land between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers to a group of seven Englishmen. In 1719 this land came into the possession of Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax, after whom Fairfax County was named. By 1732 there were attempts to form the land into a county, but it was not until 1741 that the Virginia Assembly, meeting in Williamsburg, created Fairfax County. The assembly action took effect the next year."
And regarding where he was buried:-
http://gen.culpepper.com/historical/nneck/5b-leeds.htm
"The first resting place was the original parish church of Frederick, a large stone building erected at Fairfax's own cost in 1762. This building stood on the corner of Loudoun (Main) and Boscawen (Water) streets in the town of Winchester (Cartmel, Shenandoah Valley Pioneers, 1909, pp. 183, 138), where a stone today displays an inscription recording that 'Lord Fairfax was first buried on this spot, and afterwards removed and buried under Christ Church in this town"
"In Memory of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, who died 1782, and whose ashes repose underneath this church, which he endowed.
It will be noted that the date here cited, apparently following Burnaby, is erroneous. For this consideration, as well as others, a new bronze tablet was, in the autumn of 1925, set up in Christ Church on the occasion of the re-interment there of Lord Fairfax's dust; on which is an MI. as follows:
[Arms, Fairfax of Cameron quartering Culpeper, with the motto, 'Fare Fac' being the achievement which Lord Fairfax himself preferred to use in relation to Virginia, as identifying the origin of his proprietary title; and which he had displayed, e.g., on the third (1745) state of John Warner's map of the Northern Neck.]
Under this Spot repose the Remains of Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax of Cameron, Son of Thomas, fifth Lord Fairfax, and Catherine Culpeper, his wife. Born at Leeds Castle, County Kent, England, October 22, 1693. Died at his proprietary of the Northern Neck in Virginia, December 9, 1781, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. He was buried in the original Frederick Parish Church at the comer of Loudoun (Main) and Boscawen (Water) Streets, whence his remains were removed to this church in 1828; where they were reinterred in 1925, when this tablet was erected by the Vestry of Christ Church."
also worth looking at is
http://gazette.gmu.edu/articles/index.php?id=6925
which starts off:-
"It is said that Sally Cary, who became the wife of George William Fairfax of Belvoir, Va., was George Washington’s first love. She and her husband spent the Revolutionary War in England, but kept in touch with Gen. Washington. She died in Bath, England, in 1811, leaving a will. The original of Sally Fairfax’s will, an interesting piece of local history, is owned by Randolph Lytton.
Lytton, a professor of history at George Mason whose specialty is Greek and Roman history, is also fascinated with the local history of Northern Virginia."
Amen.