The courthouse is architecturally significant
for two reasons, one; it is this transition building from
Georgian to Federal architecture. James Wren is
the designer or architect of the Fairfax county courthouse.
So this courthouse is different. When Wren designed
it, he made it two story; I don't know of an earlier two
story courthouse in Virginia. And he used some influence
from the Federal period, which was just coming into vogue. It
was a unique design, at least in Virginia. It mirrored more
of an English town hall feel with the arcade out front. The
most interesting thing about the courthouse or the most
striking element of the courthouse, I think, is
actually the front arches. That seems to be the thing
that most people recognize. It's also architecturally
significant because of its 1960s restoration. The
Confederate and the Union army both occupied it for times.
Fairfax court did not meet here during that time, but
when they moved back in 1865, essentially the entire
interior was destroyed. So Walter MaComber, when he
renovated this building, he used lots of colonial revival
elements. For example, that classical surround, behind the
judge's bench. Normally in the colonial period, you had four
or five magistrates sitting up there, not just one. There was
also space for the jury, attorney, sheriffs and that
sort of thing. And then the general public was behind a
rail. It was just a totally different architectural style,
a lot of people think that it reminds them of churches,
that's just kind of by design. The windows on the second
story are twelve over eight, it's called twelve over eight
double hung sash, you want a big window but they didn't
have the technology to make giant panes of glass like we
do now. So you had twelve little panes of glass. There
are five interior chimneys which go to fireplaces on the
interior. And finally, another Georgian element on this
building is the brick bond. And here in looking at this
pillar which is Georgian like the arcaded loges had pillars,
and the federal courthouses had columns instead. You can
get a close up and see the brick work. It's what's called
Flemish bond, and it has a header and then a stretcher
and then a header, so header is short end of the brick and
stretcher is the long end and header is the short end again.
So it alternates, but the way it works is sort of looks like
a plus sign from each row to another. So this is the most
expensive brick bond and it is high class. The best place to
really get to know the age of a building is the attic.
That's where your history of the building is.
Here we are in the attic of the courthouse. Attics and cellars
are the best places to look to learn about the construction
of the building. To learn about how old the building is.
People don't make many changes to attics and cellars. The
original bones of the building are exposed. For example, this
king's post truss is original to the construction off the
building in 1799 and 1780. You can see here it has very very
rough saw marks. You can see it was hand hewn. They didn't
have a machine to cut this timber, so they laid a log
across a pit. This is called pit-sawn technique. You had
one man in the bottom, in the pit, and one man on top, and
they sawed up and down. The man on the bottom had one end
and the man on top had one end, and they sawed up and
down. It was not fun being the guy on the bottom. I don't
know how they decide who got which, because the guy in the
pit got saw dust and all this stuff in his eyes and his hair
and his face. This is completely put together by
mortise and tenon joinery. All of these pieces were sawn on
the ground, on site, so when you get up in the attic you
have to figure out, okay, what tenon goes into which mortis.
So to do that they used a modified system of roman
numerals. You have this here, and you then you have another
one here, so the guy that is actually putting this
together, like pieces in a puzzle, knows to put this
tenon into this mortise. And then you see these pegs here?
These pegs were used to further strengthen the mortise
and tenon joinery. You see this in the king's post truss,
as well. And down here, of course, this is a much later
addition to help strengthen the joinery there. This is the
oldest public building still owned by Fairfax County and it's
all hand-hewed, the workers literally cut down trees, full
timbers and trimmed and cut them to size.
Here, in the eastern end of the attic, you can see more of the
construction elements. For example, this is an excellent
example here of the pit-sawing technique, and it makes these
very obvious marks. Then also in the 1840's, a cupola and a
bell were added to the courthouse. So you can see
these beams around here, very massive, very large to support
the weight of that bell. And you can see the pegs here that
they used to reinforce that joinery, because that bell is
so heavy. And the ladder itself you can see is also
handmade cast iron nails. This section of the attic is a
great location to look at some of the original elements, and
some of the construction elements. You can see over
here we have a brand new beam, a modern beam, right adjacent
to one of the original beams with pit-sawn marks. So
instead, when they reinforced the attic roof, instead of
replacing, they just put new beams right next to them. This
is a fascinating beam right here; this one still has bark
on it. It still has a bark edge. Dendrochronologists can
take core samples of bark, and because you have bark edge,
they can read the rings of the core sample and tell you
exactly when that tree was cut down, what type of tree that
was, and where it came from. Also, right near here is an
example of what is called circular sawing woods. You can
see the saw marks are sort of curved, which means it was cut
using a circular saw, much like the saws we have today.
Those came into use in Virginia around the 1840's.
There are all these little clues, and you never know with
modern technology what you're going to learn. So much of
what the county became was created in that courthouse and
to know that it is right there, you can feel that
history when you walk into it.