Mt. Zion Historic Park features the 1851 Aldie Old School Baptist Church that served its congregation until 1980, and also was the site of Civil War activity between 1861-1865. Used as a hospital after the June 1863 Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville, it was also the scene of the July 6, 1864, Battle of Mt. Zion Church between Confederate forces under John S. Mosby and Union forces of the 2nd Massachusetts and 13th New York.
MT. ZION HISTORIC PARK
40309 John Mosby Highway
Aldie, VA 20105
A good friend of ours told us about the Aldie Old School Baptist Church. It is now a well-preserved church that has had its ups and downs but still survives and now that it and the surrounding area is part of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, it will survive as a well-maintained historic piece of Loudoun County’s history. The Church was built in 1851 and was used in the civil war as a hospital and prison. It was also the scene of the Battle of Aldie which took place on June 17, 1863, as part of the Gettysburg Campaign and a cavalry skirmish often referred to as the Battle of Mt. Zion Church when Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby and his Rangers met the Union forces from Massachusetts and New York under Major William H. Forbes on July 6, 1864.
The Cemetery
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Church is its cemetery with stones dating up until the 1900’s. It is enclosed by a beautiful and well preserved, high stone wall. According to the last pastor of the church, this wall was erected in 1853. The first burial in Mt. Zion Cemetery took place in 1852, one year after the church was constructed. It is the grave of Thomas H.A. Lynn, who died June 11, 1852. The stone was erected sometime after 1855. Buried here at Mt. Zion is a veteran of the War of 1812, Robert Coe. Also interred here are thirteen Confederate Soldiers. In the southwest corner of the cemetery, twelve markers have been put in place to honor the Union soldiers who died at the Battle of Mt. Zion on July 6, 1864. The question of where these twelve Union soldiers were buried is intriguing.
Eliza Davis was the wife of Alexander Davis, otherwise known as “Yankee Davis” a Union Scout for Colonel Charles Russell Lowell, of the 2nd Massachusetts. The Davis’ were natives of Connecticutt who had migrated to Aldie, Virgina and were prosperous farmers during Civil War. Alexander, with Union sympathies and with a thorough acquaintance of the Alie, Middleburg, Upperville area, was a most useful scout for Union troops during this time. Eliza, on the other hand, was a first-hand witness to the miseries of war in this area. She witnessed the battle and the aftermath of the battle at Mt. Zion Church. She confirms the burial of eleven of the twelve Union soldiers that were killed that day in a letter to her mother, stating that her daughter Ellen “saw eleven all buried in one grave last summer without coffins. They are buried a little over a mile from here where they fell. They belonged to Colonel Lowell’s Command, fellow soldiers in the same Reg. with your son and my husband that was in a skirmish with Mosby’s guerillas.” Although there were efforts after the war to locate fallen Union soldiers and rebury them in National Cemeteries it is unclear whether these fallen, along with the soldier that died at a local farm, were ever recovered. It is to honor these twelve that the twelve tombstones were placed in the Mt. Zion Church cemetery.
We are also unsure whether the twelfth soldier wasn’t also mentioned by Eliza Davis in this same letter. She writes “One that died in the barn said when he was dying, Oh, my poor wife and child. I don’t know who he was or where his wife and child are but his body is buried in a grave with two others just back of our barn, all three buried without coffins, two more are buried the same way back of the house so you see I live along on a battlefield with the Brave and Dead all around me.”
Charles A. Humphreys, Chaplain of Second Massachusetts Cavalry Volunteers, later wrote that when he was searching out the wounded and dying after the battle: “I hurried to the nearest house and with some trembling knocked at the door. Every farmhouse in this section was a refuge for guerrillas, and every farmer was an ally of Mosby, and every farmer’s son was with him or in the Confederate army. But I felt that suffering humanity would make a strong appeal, and I was not, in this case, mistaken.” At this farmhouse he was received well and was able to care for the twelth soldier, Owen Fox, Private Company H, 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry. The Chaplain fate was to be captured before Fox was buried, however, he left the farmer to carry out the burial.
The Cemetery – Union Soldiers Killed in Action at Battle of Mt. Zion Church July 6, 1864
| William F. Dumaresq | Co. K, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Owen Fox | Co. H, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Samuel C. Handscom | Co. A, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Michael Hubin | Co. I, 13th NY Cavalry |
| John Johnson | Co. I, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Joseph Lovely | Co. K, 13th NY Cavalry |
| James McDonald | Co. F, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Duff Montando | Co. H, 13th NY Cavalry |
| Charles Oeldrailher | Co. G, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Patrick Riordan | Co. I, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Charles W. Rollins | Co. I, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
| Cornelius Tobin | Co. I, 2nd Mass. Cavalry |
The Cemetery – Confederate Cavalry & Infantry Buried in Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Aldie, Virginia
| Charles W. Barton | 1st Virginia Cavalry |
| William Hibbs | 43rd Virginia Cavalry |
| A. Hamilton Lee | 6th Virginia Cavalry |
| Thomas Litchfield | 8th Virginia Infantry |
| John T. Lynn | 43rd Virginia Cavalry |
| Jess McIntosh | 43rd Virginia Cavalry |
| Lewis F. Palmer | 6th Virginia Cavalry |
| Robert A. Riticor | 35th Virginia Cavalry |
| W.T. Saffer | 6th Virginia Cavalry |
| James Sinclair | 43rd Virginia Cavalry |
| Charles E. Skinner | 8th Virginia Infantry |
| W.P. Thomas | 43rd Virginia Cavalry |
| Philip F. Van Sickler | 8th Virginia Infantry |
Black Parishioners are buried in a segregated section located outside of the enclosed wall.
The cemetery was clearly segregated. According to local tradition, slaves and free blacks were buried outside the stone wall. Although many African Americans formed their own churches after the Civil War, one of the graves outside the cemetery walls indicates that blacks were clearly welcomed as members of Mount Zion Church. Lucinda De Neal, a black resident of nearby Aldie, was buried in one of the few graves outside the walled cemetery with an inscribed stone. It states that she died in 1885 and was “a consistent member of the Old School Baptist Church.” An archaeological review done for the Mt. Zion Church Preservation Association found that approximately 34 grave sites were identified located outside the cemetery wall where Lucinda De Neal is buried and are believed to be those of black parishioners.
Although Old School Baptists believed that God called men, women, blacks, and whites to membership, the church services were segregated by race and sex. Men sat to the preacher’s right and women sat to his left. This division was enforced by a wood barrier built in the center block of pews. Traditionally, only men were permitted to speak out during services.((Peacock and Tyson, Pilgrims of Paradox)) The balcony that extends around three sides of the building was likely included in the church design to accommodate the slaves and free blacks who attended services. Although no records of the church confirm this use, records from the nearby Ketoctin Baptist Church indicates that the balcony was included specifically for blacks.((Ford, Ketoctin Chronicle. 14.)) Apparently, this extended to the cemetery for the black parishioners.
As Christians my wife and I struggled with this. James 2:1 clearly states: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” How was this practice consistent with this admonition of James, an admonition not just to the church that James was addressing but to churches throughout the Church Age.
Thy chosen cannot die.
Like thee they conquer in the strife.
To reign with thee on high.
Civil War Significance
Civil War History – The Battles of Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville – June 17 – 21, 1863
From its earliest years, the location of the church on a high point at the intersection of the Little River Turnpike and the Old Carolina Road made it a visible local landmark. During the Civil War, it became a reference point for troops moving through the area. Because it was located in an area that shifted between Confederate and Union control, and perhaps because of damages it sustained, the congregation did not meet for services during the final years of the war. According to John T. Riticor’s testimony before the Congressional Court of Claims in 1905, Union troops camped on the church grounds and used the building as a barracks when they moved through the area in 1862. The following year, Union troops used the building as a hospital to treat soldiers injured in fighting nearby. Although Riticor swore under oath that no Confederate forces occupied the church property, partisan ranger John Mosby mustered his troops at the landmark when he embarked on his famous campaign of guerrilla attacks against Union supply trains and pickets. It was during the Union’s bungled attempt to stamp out Mosby’s stronghold in southern Loudoun County that the Battle of Mount Zion was fought near the building on July 6, 1864.
Under the authorization of Major General J.E.B. Stuart, Mosby began harassing Union troops in January 1863. When ordered to attack Union supply lines, Mosby formed a band of about fifteen men, led them to the Bull Run Mountains, and ordered them to disperse through the area and meet ten days later at the Mount Zion Church for further instructions. As ordered, the rangers reconvened at the church on January 28, where they mounted a raid on Federal pickets stationed elsewhere in the county. The raid was the rangers’ first in a reign of terror against Union troops that earned Loudoun County and its environs the nickname “Mosby’s Confederacy.”
During General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1863, Confederate and Union troops clashed in several fierce cavalry actions in Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. The Mount Zion Church was among a number of buildings that were used as hospitals to treat the men injured in the engagements. According to a casualty list published in the New York Times on June 25, 1863, sixty men were being treated at the Mount Zion Church at the time, a number which included 56 soldiers fighting for the Union and four Confederates. Seven soldiers who did not survive their wounds were buried in the church cemetery. When Joshua Riticor described the damage inflicted on the church at the time, he stated that about thirty-five church pews were ripped out of the floor and broken up to be used as coffins and headstones for the Union dead. Mosby’s guerrillas were close at hand during the actions and ambushed New York Herald correspondent Lynde Walter Buckingham on June 22 as he headed toward Washington with his reports on the cavalry actions. He was taken to the hospital at Mount Zion Church, where he died. He was buried in the Mount Zion cemetery in a grave dug for him by his close friend, Civil War artist Alfred Waud. Buckingham and the other soldiers buried at that time, however, were likely disinterred soon thereafter and reburied on friendly soil.
Excerpted from the transcript of the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No. 10024.0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form dated March 23, 1998 and prepared by Elizabeth Barthold O’Brien, Project Architectural Historian. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Civil War History – Cavalry Engagement July 6, 1864
Although Mosby’s Rangers saw numerous engagements throughout the war, their greatest victory was won on the grounds of the Mount Zion Church. On July 6,1864, they fought a cavalry force sent into Loudoun County for the sole purpose of routing them in a skirmish that came to be called locally the Battle of Mount Zion. In search of Mosby, Major William H. Forbes rode into the county with a force comprised of 50 men of the 13th New York Cavalry and about 100 men of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. The latter group included two companies of the California Battalion, a group of Westerners hand-picked to fight Mosby and the only Californian troops to fight in the war. For two days, Forbes and his men searched unsuccessfully in the Blue Ridge Mountains before turning back east along the Little River Turnpike. Meanwhile, Mosby with his own force of about 175 men learned of the search and planned to attack Forbes on his return. Mosby’s men proceeded to a point on the Little River Turnpike slightly east of Mount Zion church.
As the Union troops halted near the church for dinner on the evening of the sixth, Mosby’s force approached along the road from the east. Forbes’s pickets fired an alarm, and the Union troops hastily formed into two lines on the south side of the turnpike. As Forbes’s men fired, the advancing Confederates fired their only cannon, a twelve-pound Napoleon. The shell exploded in the air in a noisy blast that disoriented Forbes’s men and frightened their horses. Mosby’s men charged into the confusion. Union troops rallied near the church and in the nearby woods where they engaged their opponents in hand-to-hand combat.
In the woods near the church, Forbes and Mosby came face to face and Forbes lunged at Mosby with a saber. One of Mosby’s men moved in to take the blow while Mosby fired upon Forbes at close range. Forbes’s horse reared at the same time and received a lethal bullet. The dead animal fell to the ground pinning Forbes beneath him. Forbes surrendered, while the remainder of his force fled. In the confusion following the battle, accounts of the number of casualties varied, but reliable accounts indicate that more than 105 Union soldiers were either killed, wounded or captured, while Mosby’s losses were one man was killed and six wounded. The following day, a Federal relief force buried eleven of the Union dead in the Mount Zion cemetery, where they remain.
Excerpted from the transcript of the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service OMB No. 10024.0018 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form dated March 23, 1998 and prepared by Elizabeth Barthold O’Brien, Project Architectural Historian.
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Herman Melville’s Poem, “The Scout toward Aldie,” Describes the Union Soldier’s Fear of the “Gray Ghost”, Confederate Cavalry Commander John Singleton Mosby
The architectural significance of Mt. Zion Old School Baptist Church
The following is the complete transcript of the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service VDHR 53-339 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form dated March 23, 1998 and prepared by Elizabeth Barthold O’Brien, Project Architectural Historian.
Church Building – Narrative Description
The Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church (VDHR File #53-339) is an unadorned two-story rectangular brick building. Because few changes have been made to the structure since its initial construction in 1851, it has excellent historical integrity. Other than some settling of the stone foundation, which has caused the west wall to bulge, the building is in good condition. While it is similar in form to many rural church buildings, it is strikingly similar to two nearby Baptist churches that were built around the same time. The Mount Zion church stands on the south side of a two-lane road amid a rural landscape that appears largely unchanged since the time the church was built. The property was originally bounded on the west by the Old Carolina Road. The trace of this abandoned route remains visible and contributes to the significance of the property. The property also includes a large cemetery and two concrete-block privies. The cemetery is a contributing resource. but the privies, which appear to have been built in the mid-twentieth century, are non-contributing buildings.
The 46-foot-2-inch-by-36-foot-2-inch church building is bilaterally symmetrical and is oriented with the points of the compass.((John Carlton Grier, “Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church,” Loudoun County, Virginia,” (Paper prepared under the direction of K. Edward Lay, Professor of Architecture, University of Virginia, 1992), 12.)) As with many church buildings, its primary elevation is on a gable end that faces east. This three-bay front elevation has doors symmetrically placed in the first and third bays. A rectangular date block under the gable end states, “erected 1851.” The building has additional entries in the easternmost bays of the three-bay north and south elevations. The west elevation is two bays wide with no door openings.
The church is constructed of five-course-American-bond brick that varies in color from red to brown. White lines visible throughout the mortar joints indicate penciling, a common brick treatment in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. The building stands on a randomly coursed low stone foundation. The brick walls were laid flush with the exterior face of the foundations, which are probably slightly wider than the walls. As a result, eccentric loading has caused rotational settlement, and the west elevation bulges slightly outward.((Luis Fernandez, “Mount Zion Church, Preliminary Structural Evaluation or Rear Wall Distress,” Letter report submitted by Fernandez and Associates to the Mount Zion Church Preservation Association, 1996)) To minimize the bulging of the walls, metal tie rods and a metal cable have been installed at the first floor ceiling and balcony floor levels. The variously sized and shaped iron anchors holding the ends of these beams and the cable are visible on the east and west elevations.
The gable roof is covered with standing-seam metal. On its south slope is a rectangular trap door providing access to the roof from the attic. The cornices on the north and south elevations are accented with corbeled brickwork. Alternating projecting headers create a denticulated effect that is similar to that employed in the cornice of the Pleasant Vale Baptist Church, erected in Fauquier County in 1845. On the east and west elevations, approximately six-inch-wide flat bargeboards run along the raking cornices. Brick flues project from the north and south slopes of the roof. They are situated flush with the brick walls between the middle and easternmost bays of the north and south elevations. Both are topped with vaulted brick caps for weather protection that are identical to those on both the Pleasant Vale Church and the Ketoctin Baptist Church. built near Round Hill, Virginia. in Loudoun County in 1854 (VDHR File #53-308).((John G. Lewis, “Ketoctin Baptist Church,” Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Survey Form, File #53-308, 1973))
Seven windows illuminate the first floor of the Mount Zion Church. Two windows pierce the first level of the north, south, and west elevations, and one window is located between the two doors on the east front elevation. They are all eight-over-eight double-hung wood sash windows with two-panel operable shutters. Most appear to retain their original glass panes. The eleven windows on the second level-three each on the east, north, and south elevations and two on the west elevation – have all been sealed from the inside with drywall. From the outside, they are obscured by closed louvered wood shutters, except for the two openings on the west elevation. which have been sealed with plywood. The windows all have plain wood surrounds and flat wood sills.
The two front doors in the east elevation are three-panel double doors topped by four-light transoms. The door in the first bay of the north elevation is a six-panel door with a three-light transom, and its counterpart in the third bay of the south elevation is a vertical board door, which also has a three-light transom. One of these doors is likely the replacement door that was added after the loss of a door during the Civil War. All of the windows, as well as the four doors are topped by brick jack arches.
The exterior of the building clearly reflects the arrangement of the interior space. The two front doors lead into the main room and are aligned with the two parallel aisles that run the length of the building. At the west end of the building, centered between the two windows on the west wall, is the wood pulpit raised on an approximately eight-inch-tall wood platform. The two side doors lead into the boxed staircases in the northeast and southeast comers of the building that access the second-floor balcony. The staircase in the northeast comer is accessible only from the exterior door on the north elevation. The southeast staircase is accessed by a four-panel interior door on its west wall as well as from the outside by the exterior door on the south elevation. Four-panel doors on the north wall of the southeast staircase and the south wall of the northeast staircase access storage spaces beneath the stain.
Ten pews form the central seating block on the first floor. The ten pews are interconnected by a center board that runs down the center. This board was included as a physical separation between the north and south halves of the building, dividing the men and women in the congregation. According to Primitive Baptist tradition, men were seated to the preacher’s right, and women sat to his left.((James L. Peacock and Paul W. Tyson, Jr. Pilgrims of Paradox: Calvinism and Experience among the Primitive Baptists of the Blue Ridge (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 198.)) In addition to the center block of pews, ten free-standing pews are situated between the north aisle and the north wall, on the women’s side of the church, and nine free-standing pews are located between the south aisle and south wall, on the men’s side of the church. The pews all have slanted backs and are finished with decorative wood graining. Some are paneled, however. while others are plain. Because thirty-five pews were reportedly destroyed during the Civil War, these pews are not original to the building.((U. S. Court of Claims, “Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church, Aldie, Virginia v. the United States,” Congressional Case #11790,1905- 07 (Record Group 123, National Archives and Records Administration).)) The three pews at the west end on the north side of the building face south and the three on the west end of the south side of the building face north, providing a better view of the pulpit. Toward the rear of the sanctuary, pews on both sides face away from the pulpit and toward the two brass pot-bellied stoves that provided the only source of heat for the building. Four of the pews in the side aisles are shorter than the rest to accommodate four of the seven columns that support the balcony above. A fifth column rises from the center of the second to the last pew in the center section and the sixth and seventh columns are located near the comer staircases. The arrangement of the pews and columns in the Mount Zion Church is nearly identical to that in the Ketoctin Baptist Church. The wood columns supporting the balcony in the Mount Zion Church are sixteen-sided. each topped by a round echinus and square abacus.
The balcony runs along the east, north, and south walls and is surrounded by a paneled wood parapet. which is also finished with painted wood graining. Presently, several types of wood pews and benches are stored haphazardly in the balcony. Also stored upstairs are the six electric lights that formerly hung from the ceiling. These were installed around the 1950s but were recently removed during a Civil War reenactment.((Wynne Saffer, interview with the author, 11 January 1997: Karen A. Titus, interview with the author, 11 December 1996)) A small trap door in the ceiling at the east end of the building accesses the attic. A built-in ladder in the attic leads to the roof opening.((Grier, “Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church,” 17.))
The interior walls are lath and plaster, although some areas have been repaired with dry wall. In areas where the plaster has deteriorated, the circular-sawn wood lath beneath it is exposed. The ceiling is covered with narrow wood boards, and the floorboards of the balcony are tongue and groove. The first floor is also covered with wood boards. although these are partially covered by red carpeting.
The church stands on a roughly triangular tract of about six acres. although the original deed for the property referred to a tract of 3 1/2acres. The church is located about 200 feet south of U.S. Route 50, from which it is accessed by a circular drive. A wood-rail fence encloses a small yard around the church building. Northwest of the church is a large cemetery enclosed by a high stone wall. According to the last pastor of the church, this wall was erected in 1853.((John D. Wood, “Mount Zion History is Traced,” Loudoun Times Mirror, 21 March 1968.)) Quarried from local stone. a portion of the wall reportedly features a fossilized imprint made by a dinosaur. More than 200 graves from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are marked with inscribed stones. It is likely that the cemetery also contains a number of unmarked graves.((Saffer interview)) The older burials are located towards the south side of the enclosure. Outside the walled cemetery are at least 33 more graves that are reportedly the burials of blacks. Except for two graves with inscribed markers, these graves are unidentified. Some of the graves are indicated by field stones placed on end in the uneven ground, while others have no markers. The walled cemetery and the graves outside the wall comprise a contributing site. West of the church and cemetery is the remaining trace of the Old Carolina Road. When the road was abandoned, 0.3576 acres were added to the church tract. Because the Carolina Road was significant in the history of the church, the portion of this trace on the church property is also a contributing structure.
In addition to the church and cemetery, two concrete-block privies are also located on the property. One is located south of the church near the southeast boundary of the property, and the other is located closer to the church at the juncture of the wood-picket fence around the church and the cemetery wall. Both are concrete-block structures with shed roofs. Corrugated metal walls have been added near their entrances, presumably as a screen for privacy. Vertical board-and-batten walls are propped around both structures. These were added during a recent Civil War reenactment to make them appear more historic.((Saffer interview.” Wood, “Mount Zion History.”))
Statement of Significance Under National Register Criterion A
The Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church and Cemetery is significant under National Register Criterion A for its association with the Primitive Baptist denomination and for the events that occurred there during the Civil War. It is also recommended eligible under Criterion C for its architectural design and Criterion D for its potential to yield important historical information. The church was built in 1851 to serve an Old School Primitive Baptist congregation, which used the church nearly continuously for 129 years before holding its last service there in 1980. Since 1980 the church has been used periodically for a variety of gatherings. The period of significance, from 1851 to 1947, includes the date of the building’s construction and much of the time it served as an Old School Baptist church. Although the building served the same congregation until 1980, its significance within the past fifty years is not of the exceptional importance necessary to satisfy Criteria Consideration G for properties achieving significance in the past fifty years. The year 1947 marks no year particularly important in the church’s history, other than the date fifty years prior to its nomination to the National Register.
As an excellent example of a rural antebellum church, the property is significant under National Register Criterion A in the area of religion for its association with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. The simple vernacular building has had few alterations during more than a century of service and typifies the conservative rural church styles of the antebellum South. Its design also incorporates specific features included to meet the particular needs and beliefs of the congregation. Thus, the church is significant under Criterion C in the area of architecture for its embodiment of the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method, of construction. The property’s association with events of the Civil War during the period 1862-1864 gives it additional significance under National Register Criterion A in the area of military events. Because of its prominent location on a hilltop at the intersection of two early roads, it was a landmark for travelers and a point of reference during the Civil War. During the conflict, Union troops used the building as a hospital, barracks, and prison, and Confederate partisan rangers under the leadership of John Singleton Mosby used the church as a meeting place. On July 6, 1864, Union and Confederate forces engaged in a skirmish near the church known as the Battle of Mount Zion.
The property also meets the requirements of Criteria Consideration A for religious properties. Because religious properties are among those types of properties not usually considered for listing, Criteria Consideration A states that a church may be eligible if it derives its primary significance from architectural or artistic distinction or historical importance. Because the property’s primary significance is from its historical importance to local religious history, because it is also architecturally significant and historically significant for its associations with the Civil War, it appears to meet the requirements of Criteria Consideration A.
Finally, the church property is eligible under Criterion D for its potential to yield important historical information. The walled cemetery has the potential to yield information about nineteenth-century burial practices. The approximately thirty-one unmarked graves outside the wall have a particularly high potential for yielding historical information, since questions have been raised concerning the identity of the people buried there. Although no written documentation has come to light to identify these graves, oral tradition holds that black members of the congregation were buried outside the cemetery wall. The race, age. and gender of the people buried outside the wall, as well as the treatments of their grave sites, has the potential to yield information about the black community in this region. By determining the races of the people buried inside and outside the wall, archeological investigations could shed further light on the racial attitudes of Virginia Old School Baptists. Additional historical information could be gained from the domestic site on the west end of the property and scattered deposits related to the military use of the church during the Civil War.
Recent archeological investigations on the property resulted in the identification of two archeological sites; the domestic site and the archeological resources associated with the church. The investigations also located three artifact scatters, two isolated artifact locations, and the limits of the burial ground outside the wall. Subsurface testing at the domestic site produced artifacts dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although testing adjacent to the church yielded no datable artifacts, it revealed an intact trench that may contain artifacts related to repairs of the church structure.
“Old School” Baptist Movement
The Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church is a representative building of a religious movement that gained momentum in the mid-nineteenth century but steadily declined during the twentieth century. The church was founded by a group of former members of Loudoun County’s Little River Baptist Church((Wood, “Mount Zion History” Gulick)) Matthew P. Lee, Robert A. Ish, William B. Marshall, Robert P. and ELizabeth Hutchison, Elizabeth Rogers, Sarah Horsman, Abigale Foley, Ann Matthew, and Jerucia Nattose reportedly left the Little River Baptist Church in 1850 in reaction to changes in its practices and doctrines that they found inconsistent with their beliefs. The original members of the Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church also included George, Sarah, and Ann Gulick and Pamela Lynn, who were members of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, but sought a church nearer to their homes.((Minute Bank of the Ebenezer Old School Baptist Church 1804-1904. Virginia State Archives, Microfilm.)) These five men and nine women met in September 1850 with elders Robert Leachman and Samuel Trott to develop articles of faith and rules of discipline to guide a new church. The foundation of their beliefs was their conviction that salvation was for those predestined, or elected for grace, by God. Elder Leachman became the first pastor of the Mount Zion congregation, Robert Ish served as its clerk, William Marshall served as its treasurer, and Matthew P. Lee and George Gulick were its deacons.((Wood, “Mount Zion History.”))
The formation of the Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church in 1850 was part of a nationwide movement among Baptists that had begun in the early nineteenth century. In 1827, the Kehukee Baptist Association of North Carolina made a resolution to resist a number of contemporary innovations that were being incorporated in Baptist churches throughout the country, such as salaried ministers and the formation of missionary societies, Sunday schools, temperance societies, and theological seminaries.((Arthur Carl Piepkorn. “The Primitive Baptists of Noah America,” Baptist History and Heritage 7, no. I (January 1972): 33)) Because the Kehukee Resolution and the similar resolutions that followed it were made in reaction to change, its advocates were identified with terms such as “old school,” “old line,” “primitive,” “particular.” and “hard shell.” These congregations were also often identified as “predestinarian,” because they held in common the belief that eternal salvation is determined by God alone without respect to the work of a human minister or the written or spoken word.((Piepkorn, “Primitive Baptists,” 35-36.))
Five years after the adoption of the Kehukee resolution, Baptists from the mid-Atlantic and northern states convened at the Black Rock Church in Baltimore County, Maryland, to adopt a position similar to that adopted in North Carolina. The Black Rock meeting of 1832 is widely considered as the beginning of the Primitive Baptist movement.((Peacock and Tyson, Pilgrims of Paradox, 4.)) Elder Samuel Trott, who was later instrumental in the formation of the Mount Zion congregation, was among the six elders who led the assembly at Black Rock. Gilbert Beebe, who was also among the leaders, began publishing a tract called the Signs of theTimes the same year, and attracted a large following among Primitive Baptist congregations. Since its foundation, the Mount Zion congregation followed Gilbert Beebe’s theology, despite subsequent divisions among adherents of old school beliefs.((Garnett Ryland. The Baptists of Virginia, 1699-1926 (Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Baptist Board of Missions and Education, 1955). 5 1; Piepkorn, “Primitive Baptists,” 35; Titus interview))
In 1835, the “Old School” movement was formally established in Virginia. That year, the Ketoctin Association, which was formed in Loudoun County in 1766, passed a motion to exclude those Baptist churches which had joined the missionary movement.((William Vernon Ford, Ketoctin Chronicle (Leesburg, Virginia: Potomac Press, 1964). 4: Piepkorn, “Primitive Baptists.” 35.)) Although Old School Baptists eschewed ecclesiastical organizations other than the local congregations, associations such as the Ketoctin Association had been an integral part of the denomination since its founding in the United States, and they encouraged fellowship and correspondence among the often geographically dispersed congregations.((Piepkorn. “Primitive Baptists,” 45-46)) When it was established in 1850, the Mount Zion congregation was associated with the Ketoctin Association, but during a schism in that body in 1852, joined the Virginia Corresponding Meeting of Old School Baptists, which had been established by Samuel Trott in 1836.((Wood, “Mount Zion History”; Grier, “Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church.” 2.)) During the nearly 130 years that the church was active, it had a small but consistent congregation and was served by only five pastors, Elder Leachman served the church until 1869, and was followed by Joseph L. Purrington from 1869 to 1874, J. N. Badger from 1876 to 1915, Horace H. Lefferts from 1917 to 1949, and John D. Wood from 1950 to 1980.((Wood Mount Zion History))
Pastors also often led services at more than one church, and as transportation improved they traveled farther afield to serve their gradually diminishing flock. Horace Lefferts’s daybook from the 1920s indicates that he preached locally at the Mount Zion, Frying Pan, and New Valley churches and also traveled to serve congregations at the Broad Run Church in Maryland, the Welsh Tract Church in Delaware, and the Needmore Church in Pennsylvania. Generally, he spent an entire weekend with each church community, preaching a sermon Saturday night and another the following Sunday morning.((Horace H. Lefferts, Daybook 1917-49, Diary in the collection of Karen A. Titus, n.p.)) Throughout the twentieth century, the Virginia Corresponding Meeting convened at the Mount Zion Church for two days each October. By 1949, the Virginia Corresponding Meeting included the Mount Zion congregation and Primitive Baptist congregations at Frying Pan Church in Herndon and the New Valley Church in Lucketts. At that time the three churches had a total of 36 members. and Mount Zion had the fewest, with only nine. Although the church had gained a new member that year through baptism, two of its members had died. The minutes of the annual meeting, however, were published and sent to congregations throughout the East Coast of the United States and Canada.((Minutes of the Virginia Corresponding Meeting, Held with the Mount Zion Church Middletown New York: J.E. Beebe & Co., 1949)) Horace Lefferts died in 1949. His successor John D. Wood continued to preach at the Mount Zion Church until May 1980, when declining attendance prompted the closing of the church. Wood continued to preach at the Frying Pan Church until it also closed due to a lack of members in 1981.((Alan Fogg, “And Then There Was One: Its flock all but gone, a historic church closes,” Arlington Journal November 8 [year unknown], newspaper clipping in the collection of Wynne Saffer.))
While the Mount Zion Church is historically significant for its association with the Primitive Baptist movement, the building is also architecturally significant. Its materials and design reflect building traditions of the time, yet it incorporates design elements included specifically to meet the needs of its congregation. At the time the Mount Zion congregation was established in 1850, a committee comprised of George Gulick, Robert Ish, Matthew P. Lee and a W. S. Hutchison was created to oversee the construction of a house of worship. On December 10, 1850, church trustees, Lee, Marshall, Ish, and Robert Hutchison, purchased a three-and-one-half acre wooded tract “at the intersection of the Little River Turnpike and the road from ‘Miss Lacey’s’ to ‘Ball’s Mill’ commonly called the ‘Carolina Road.”‘ They purchased the land for $100 from four members of the Riticor family, who also attended the church and were later buried in its cemetery.((Loudoun County Deed Book SD, 323, Loudoun County Recorder of Deeds. Leesburg, Virginia.)) According to the date painted on its east elevation, the church building was completed the following year in 1851. Although the church builders are unknown, the design of this vernacular structure echoes the simple nave plan typical of many rural nineteenth-century churches. The church is similar in form, materials, and architectural details to two contemporary Baptist churches in the region, the Pleasant Vale Baptist Church in Fauquier County, which was built in 1845, and the Ketoctin Baptist Church, built in 1854 near the town of Round Hill in Loudoun County.((John G. Lewis, “Mount Zion Baptist Church.” Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Survey Form, File #53-339. 1972; Grier. “Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church.” 14.))
Perhaps the most dominant characteristic of the church is its architectural severity. While this lack of adornment was economically practical, it also reflects the denomination’s emphasis on the word of God rather than on worldly inventions. The structure contains only one room, the focus of which is the pulpit and lectern on a raised platform at the west end of the building. Here, on the fourth weekend of every month, the pastor read scripture and delivered sermons based on passages from the Bible. The congregation participated in the singing of hymns, which were traditionally sung very slowly and generally in a minor key. Any instrumental accompaniment was forbidden.((Peacock and Tyson. Pilgrims of Paradox. 115-116)) As a result, one person who attended these services recalled that it sounded as if the hymns were being chanted rather than sung.((Titus interview)) Following the sermon, the church members then traditionally held business meetings to discuss the life of the church.((Minute Book of the Frying Pan Old School Baptist Church 1828-1879, Virginia State Archives, Microfilm; Ebenezer Minute Book.)) The church could accommodate several hundred worshipers who sat in pews on the main floor and in the balcony. The congregation included church members as well as people who attended services but never formally joined the church. For instance, Henry Smith, Joshua R. Riticor, and John Riticor had all attended the church regularly since they were children, but when they petitioned before the Court of Claims in 1905 for funds to repair Civil War damages to the church, they all swore under oath that they had never become members of the church.((U.S. Court of Claims. “Mount Zion v. U.S.”)) According to Primitive Baptist beliefs, church membership was limited to those who felt a call from God. Minutes from the Ebenezer and Frying Pan Churches, which were closely associated with the Mount Zion Church, give many accounts of the acceptance of new members. In general, those who wished to join the church made a testimony before the congregation of the experience of their calling by God. The congregation then invited them to be baptized by full immersion. At the Mount Zion Church, these baptisms were reportedly performed in the Aldie Mill Pond.((Titus interview.))
Although Old School Baptists believed that God called men, women, blacks, and whites to membership, the church services were segregated by race and sex. Men sat to the preacher’s right and women sat to his left. This division was enforced by a wood barrier built in the center block of pews. Traditionally, only men were permitted to speak out during services.((Peacock and Tyson, Pilgrims of Paradox, 198.)) The balcony that extends around three sides of the building was likely included in the church design to accommodate the slaves and free blacks who attended services. Although no records of the church confirm this use, records from the nearby Ketoctin Baptist Church indicates that the balcony was included specifically for blacks.((Ford, Ketoctin Chronicle. 14.)) The balcony in the Mount Zion Church is accessible by two flights of stairs. The stair serving the women’s side of the balcony is accessible only from the exterior of the building, but the staircase leading to the men’s side of the balcony includes a door leading to the main floor of the sanctuary. This perhaps allowed the men seated in the balcony to move more easily to and from the pulpit to speak during services and meetings.
The large cemetery to the rear of the church also appears to have been segregated. According to local tradition, slaves and free blacks were buried outside the stone wall, which was reportedly erected around the cemetery in 1853.((Wood “Mount Zion History.”)) Although many African Americans formed their own churches after the Civil War, one of the graves outside the cemetery walls appears to indicate that blacks continued to attend the Mount Zion Church into the twentieth century. Lucinda DeNeal, a black resident of nearby Aldie, was buried in one of the few graves outside the walled cemetery with an inscribed stone.((United Statess Bureau of the Census, Manuscript Census of the United States, 1880. National Archives and Records Administration.)) It states that she died in 1885 and was “a consistent member of the Old School Baptist Church.”
In keeping with the conservative beliefs of the denomination, Old School Baptist churches generally resisted modernizing their buildings. By the 1970s, however, most of them had been updated with carpeting, comfortable pews, and electric lights which appear to date from the 1950s. ((U. S. Bureau of the Census, Manuscript Census of the United States, 1880. National Archives and Records Administration.)) Indoor plumbing, however, was never installed. Two twentieth-century, concrete-block outhouses on the property likely replaced earlier privies. Likewise, until its last service in 1980, the church continued to be heated only by two wood-burning stoves.
Civil War History
In addition to the historical and architectural significance of the church building, the property is imbued with military significance as a result of events that occurred there during the Civil War. From its earliest years, the location of the church on a high point at the intersection of the Little River Turnpike and the Old Carolina Road made it a visible local landmark. During the Civil War, it became a reference point for troops moving through the area. Because it was located in an area that shifted between Confederate and Union control, and perhaps because of damages it sustained, the congregation did not meet for services during the final years of the war. According to John T. Riticor’s testimony before the Congressional Court of Claims in 1905, Union troops camped on the church grounds and used the building as a barracks when they moved through the area in 1862.((U. S. Court of Claims, Mount Zion vs. U.S.”)) The following year, Union troops used the building as a hospital to treat soldiers injured in fighting nearby. Although Riticor swore under oath that no Confederate forces occupied the church property, partisan ranger John Mosby mustered his troops at the landmark when he embarked on his famous campaign of guerrilla attacks against Union supply trains and pickets. It was during the Union’s bungled attempt to stamp out Mosby’s stronghold in southern Loudoun County that the Battle of Mount Zion was fought near the building on July 6, 1864.
Under the authorization of Major General J.E.B. Stuart, Mosby began harassing Union troops in January 1863. When ordered to attack Union supply lines, Mosby formed a band of about fifteen men, led them to the Bull Run Mountains, and ordered them to disperse through the area and meet ten days later at the Mount Zion Church for further instructions. As ordered, the rangers reconvened at the church on January 28, where they mounted a raid on Federal pickets stationed elsewhere in the county. The raid was the rangers’ first in a reign of terror against Union troops that earned Loudoun County and its environs the nickname “Mosby’s Confederacy.”((Brian W. Boucher, “A Brief History of Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church, [1995]” (Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, Virginia, Photocopy), 1.))
During General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1863, Confederate and Union troops clashed in several fierce cavalry actions in Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. The Mount Zion Church was among a number of buildings that were used as hospitals to treat the men injured in the engagements. According to a casualty list published in the New York Times on June 25, 1863, sixty men were being treated at the Mount Zion Church at the time, a number which included 56 soldiers fighting for the Union and four Confederates. Seven soldiers who did not survive their wounds were buried in the church cemetery.((Boucher. “Brief History,” 1)) When Joshua Riticor described the damage inflicted on the church at the time, he stated that about thirty-five church pews were ripped out of the floor and broken up to be used as coffins and headstones for the Union dead.((U. S. Court of Claims Mount Zion v. U.S.)) Mosby’s guerrillas were close at hand during the actions and ambushed New York Herald correspondent Lynde Walter Buckingham on June 22 as he headed toward Washington with his reports on the cavalry actions. He was taken to the hospital at Mount Zion Church, where he died. He was buried in the Mount Zion cemetery in a grave dug for him by his close friend, Civil War artist Alfred Waud.(( Frederic E. Ray, AIfred Waud Civil War Artist (New York: Viking Press, 1974), 42.))Buckingham and the other soldiers buried at that time, however, were likely disinterred soon thereafter and reburied on friendly soil.((Brian W. Boucher, telephone interview with the author, February 1997.))
Although Mosby’s Rangers saw numerous engagements throughout the war, their greatest victory was won on the grounds of the Mount Zion Church. On July 6,1864, they fought a cavalry force sent into Loudoun County for the sole purpose of routing them in a skirmish that came to be called locally the Battle of Mount Zion. In search of Mosby, Major William H. Forbes rode into the county with a force comprised of 50 men of the 13th New York Cavalry and about 100 men of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. The latter group included two companies of the California Battalion, a group of Westerners hand-picked to fight Mosby and the only Californian troops to fight in the war. For two days, Forbes and his men searched unsuccessfully in the Blue Ridge Mountains before turning back east along the Little River Turnpike. Meanwhile, Mosby with his own force of about 175 men learned of the search and planned to attack Forbes on his return. Mosby’s men proceeded to a point on the Little River Turnpike slightly east of Mount Zion church.
As the Union troops halted near the church for dinner on the evening of the sixth, Mosby’s force approached along the road from the east. Forbes’s pickets fired an alarm, and the Union troops hastily formed into two lines on the south side of the turnpike. As Forbes’s men fired, the advancing Confederates fired their only cannon, a twelve-pound Napoleon. The shell exploded in the air in a noisy blast that disoriented Forbes’s men and frightened their horses. Mosby’s men charged into the confusion. Union troops rallied near the church and in the nearby woods where they engaged their opponents in hand-to-hand combat.
In the woods near the church, Forbes and Mosby came face to face and Forbes lunged at Mosby with a saber. One of Mosby’s men moved in to take the blow while Mosby fired upon Forbes at close range. Forbes’s horse reared at the same time and received a lethal bullet. The dead animal fell to the ground pinning Forbes beneath him. Forbes surrendered, while the remainder of his force fled. In the confusion following the battle, accounts of the number of casualties varied, but reliable accounts indicate that more than 105 Union soldiers were either killed, wounded or captured, while Mosby’s losses were one man was killed and six wounded. The following day, a Federal relief force buried eleven of the Union dead in the Mount Zion cemetery, where they remain.((Grier. “Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church,” 9-11; Boucher. “Brief History.” 2.))
In a desperate effort to break Mosby’s hold on Loudoun County, Union troops finally resorted to arresting all men in the county who were under the age of fifty. After this proved unsuccessful, even elderly men and local preachers were detained. Union forces held the men at Mount Zion Church before transferring them to federal prisons.((Grier. “Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church,” 1.))
When the war ended, the Mount Zion congregation resumed services in the beleaguered building, replacing the pews and making some repairs. Finally, in 1905, the trustees of the church petitioned the government for reimbursement “for rent and repairs” under the ruling of the Tucker Act of 1887. Three members of the congregation swore under oath that the church had remained loyal to the Union and that none of its members had fought on the Confederate side (although by that time, seven Confederate veterans had already been buried on its grounds, at least one of whom had been one of Mosby’s Rangers). In response to the claim, in 1907 the U. S. Court of Claims granted the congregation $500 to cover the loss of 35 pews, a pair of blinds, and the wood fence that bad surrounded the church lot, and for damage to the doors, walls, ceiling, and pulpit.((U.S. Court of Claims. “Mount Zion V. United States”))
Major Bibliographical References
Boucher, Brian W. “A Brief History of Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church [1995].” Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, Virginia. Photocopy.
________ Telephone conversation with the author, January 1997.
Femandez, Luis. “Mount Zion Church, Leesburg,, Virginia, Preliminary Structural Evaluation of Rear Wall Distress.” Letter Report Submitted by Femandez and Associates Structural Engineers, P.C., Falls Church, Virginia, 1996.
Fogg, Alan. “And Then There Was One: Its flock all but gone, a historic church closes.” Arlington Journal (N.d.). Undated newspaper clipping in the collection of Wynne Saffer.
Ford, William Vernon. Ketoctin Chronicle. Leesburg, Virginia: Potomac Press, 1964.
Grier, John Carlton. “Mount Zion Old School Primitive Baptist Church, Loudoun County, Virginia.” Paper prepared under the direction of K. Edward Lay, Professor of Architecture, University of Virginia, 1992.
Lefferts, Horace H. “Daybook, 1917-49.” Unpublished diary in the collection of Karen A. Titus.
Lewis, John G. “Mount Zion Baptist Church.” Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Survey Form, File # 53-339, 1972.
________ “Ketoctin Baptist Church.” Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Survey Form, File # 53-308, 1973.
Loudoun County Deed Book, 5D Folio 323 (185 1). Loudoun County Recorder of Deeds, Leesburg, Virginia.
“Minute Book of the Ebenezer Old School Baptist Church, 1804-1907.” Virginia State Archives, Richmond, Virginia. Microfilm.
“Minute Book of the Frying Pan Old School Baptist Church, 1828-79.” Virginia State Archives, Richmond. Virginia. Microfilm.
Minutes of the Virginia Corresponding Meeting, Held with the Mt. Zion Church. Middletown, New York: J.E. Beebe & Co., 1949.
Peacock, James L. and Paul W. Tyson, Jr. Pilgrims of paradox: Calvinism and Experience among the Primitive Baptists of the Blue Ridge. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
Piepkorn. Arthur Carl. “The Primitive Baptists of North America.” Baptist History and Heritage 7, No. I (January 1972): 33-51.
Poland. Charles. From Frontier lo Suburbia. Marceline, Missouri: Walsworth Publishing Co., 1976.
Ray. Frederic E. Alfred R. Waud, Civil War Artist. New York: Viking Press. 1974.
Ryland, Garnett. The Baptists of Virginia, 1699-1926. Richmond, Virginia: The Virginia Baptist Board of Missions and Education. 1955.
Saffer, Wynne. Interview with the author, 11 January 1997
Titus, Karen A. Interview with the author, 11 December 1996.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Manuscript Census of the United States. 1880. National Archives and Records Administration. Washington, D.C. Microfilm.
U.S. Court of Claims. “Mount Zion Old School Baptist Church, Aldie, Virginia v. the United States,” Congressional Case No. 11790, 1905-07. Record Group 123. National Archives and Records Administration.
Wood, John D. “Mount Zion History is Traced.” Loudoun Times Mirror. 21 March 1968.
Mairi & Dave's Gallivant Through Virginia and About 