| St. Mary of Sorrows
The oldest Catholic Church in Fairfax Station, Virginia was built
by Irish immigrant railroad workers.
When you walk among the headstones of the hilltop graveyard of St. Mary
of Sorrows, the first Catholic Church built in Fairfax Station,Virginia,
you can’t help but notice all the Irish names and the counties in
Ireland where the deceased were born.
Among the many, there’s John Cashion (d. 1882) from Co. Clare, and
Patrick Crowell (d. 1891) of Co. Roscommon. Each Memorial Day, following
a Patriotic Mass and Blessing of the Graves, the parish Hibernians place
Irish and American flags on these graves.
The church itself is a white clapboard structure with a high steeple.
It is also a national landmark and a stop along Virginia’s Civil
War Trail because of its role as a battle site and field hospital.
In 1838, two Irish farm families, the Hamills and the Cunninghams, donated
land for the church. But it wasn’t until the the late 1850s, when
the Orange and Alexandria Railroad advertised for Irish immigrants to
lay track in the area, that it was built. These same railroad workers
pitched in to build the church.
Less than a year after its completion the Civil War came to St. Mary’s.
The battles of Manassas, Bull Run Creek, and Chantilly (Ox Hill) were
fought in the area and the church soon became a field hospital. During
the course of one battle, an estimated 8,000 wounded were treated on the
grounds.
Because it was adjacent to Fairfax Station (now a museum), wounded soldiers
were laid out on the slope between the church and the train station. The
depot became a transfer point between spectators coming to view the war
and the wounded returning from battle.
One of those spectators, Clara Barton, then a clerk at the United States
Patent Office, decided to help and soon gathered a group of volunteers
to tend to the wounded and dying. Her experiences at Fairfax Station later
prompted her to establish a civilian society, which became the American
Red Cross.
During the Battle of Cedar Mountain, with 20,000 Confederate troops nearing
Fairfax Station, Barton, the doctors, and volunteers remained until the
last of the wounded were evacuated from the church.
Barton watched from the window of the last train to pull out as Confederate
soldiers set fire to the depot. (The depot would be rebuilt and destroyed
four more times before the war was over.)
“The Battle of Cedar Mountain was not the end of the war for the
church,” said Jack Devaney, 70, an engineer and co-founder of the
parish’s Ancient Order of Hibernians. “Control of the church
routinely changed hands, but was most often held by the Union Army.”
But not always.
On August 8, 1864, a skirmish took place between two New York cavalry
detachments and Colonel John Mosby, the infamous Confederate known as
the Gray Ghost, and his Raiders. According to A.O.H. historian Robert
Hickey, the Union Cavalry Captains Joseph Fleming and John McMenamin were
both Irish immigrants. Nobody knows exactly how the skirmish on the church
grounds began (there was a later court of inquiry) but when it was over,
Mosby had killed or captured most of the Union troops as well as their
horses.
St. Mary of Sorrows has changed very little in physical appearance since
1860. The old bell is still in use, but the pews that were burned for
fire wood during the Civil War were later replaced by President Ulysses
S. Grant, who often traveled by train to a nearby resort.
In the 1870s, parishioners began an annual picnic, first as a Fourth of
July celebration, then, after 1894, it transferred to Labor Day. It is
the oldest outdoor social function in Fairfax County, attended by over
10,000 people.
The Hibernians – both the Father Corby Division and the Alice Hamill
women’s division – set up booths with educational materials
about the Irish and the historical background to St. Mary of Sorrows,
which is a thriving parish of more than 3,600 families, many of them Irish-American.
John Hamill, who died in 1996, was the last of the original founding family.
He and his brother George were both members of the A.O.H., and Devaney
had many conversations with John before he died.
“He told me the parish records were all removed by one of the Dutch
priests and have never been recovered and that the rectory at one time
was a sporting club. I wish I could remember the exact story as John told
it to me, but late hours, beer and old age do muddle things up a bit.”
In 1979, a new and larger parish center was built a mile away. Once the
new center was operational, parishioners began restoring the historic
church, which was placed on the National Register in 1976. Devaney goes
to daily mass in the church with his wife Eileen, who supervised the restoration.
– By Marian Betancourt
St. Mary of Sorrow’s, located at Fairfax Station Road and Route
123, is open only for evening mass and other services, but the grounds
are accessible.
For information:
St. Mary of Sorrows Parish Center
5222 Sideburn Road
Fairfax, Virginia 22032
Phone: 703-9784141
www.stmaryofsorrows.org
The Fairfax Station Railroad Museum, operated solely by volunteers is
open to the public every Sunday from 1 to 4 pm. It houses Civil War and
railroad memorabilia along with a variety of artifacts found in and around
the old station such as nails, spikes, and early photos.
11200 Fairfax State Road (P.O.Box 7)
Fairfax Station, Virginia 22039
Phone: 703-425-9225
www.fairfax-station.org | 
