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South Fairfax Street

The congregation gathered on Fairfax Street from 1772 and completed its brick meeting house about 1775. The present building reflects a substantial reconstruction after a lightning strike and fire in 1835 that destroyed most of the original fabric ^[1] Source 1 HABS Alexandria survey Government record . The interior retains the eighteenth-century plan of box pews and a high pulpit.

When George Washington Person George Washington b. 1732 · d. 1799 Planter, military commander, and first President of the United States. Master of Mount Vernon from 1761 until his death in 1799, and a regular presence in Alexandria, which he … died at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1799, heavy ice prevented the city’s clergy from reaching the estate on the originally scheduled funeral day. Alexandria held its own public mourning services at the Meeting House on December 29 ^[2] Source 2 Powell, History of Old Alexandria, 1928 Book . The pulpit cloth and the bell that tolled the service survive in the church’s collection.

The walled churchyard contains the burials of merchant William Ramsay, physician James Craik (Washington’s lifelong friend and attending physician at his death), and a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution erected in 1929 ^[3] Source 3 Miller, Artisans and Merchants, 1991 Book . The congregation moved to a newer sanctuary in the nineteenth century and the original building is now maintained as a historic site by Old Presbyterian Meeting House.