![]() ![]() ![]() Before the war ended, Wilson became ill and returned to her home town in Wisconsin, carrying the cup and bowl with her. Wilson, the legend goes, grabbed the font, as well as a communion cup, and brought them to her camp for safekeeping. The church, which already had lost its windows and several walls to make way for Union horses stabled there, was filled with straw to prepare it for its destruction. In October 1861, several months after the Wisconsin regiment arrived in Northern Virginia, a Union general ordered his troops to burn the Lewinsville church if Union soldiers were forced to retreat. Wilson had come to Virginia with a company of Union volunteers assembled in Menomonie, the county seat of Dunn County, which back then was home of one of the world's largest white pine lumber factories. It overlooked roads that lead to Falls Church, Vienna, Leesburg and Chain Bridge, all vital to troop movements. The residents in what was once known as Lewinsville, in a vote that split members of the congregation, decided to stick with the North.Īfter a series of skirmishes that included the battle of Lewinsville, Union forces set up camp at the church, at the corner of Great Falls Street and Chain Bridge Road. When the Civil War began, the Commonwealth of Virginia voted to secede from the Union. The church was founded in October 1846, in a modest colonial building, with about 17 members. "It gives us a connection to our heritage." "It is the only piece of usable material we have that connects us directly to the original church," said the Rev. The font already has been put back into service: it was used last Sunday for the baptisms of two infants. "It does not have much intrinsic value," said church member Howard Salzman, a retired Organization of American States administrator, who led the most recent effort to reclaim the font. But after a series of attempts to arrange its return, the bowl has finally reached Lewinsville Presbyterian in McLean, in time for the church's 150th anniversary. The bowl had been spotted by a member of the congregation nearly 20 years ago in a local museum in Menomonie. Wilson, took the fluted bowl, known as a baptismal font, back with her to Menomonie, Wis., where it remained until this month. The church survived the war, although it was heavily damaged by Union troops who had used it to stable horses near a point they were guarding to prevent Confederate forces from raiding the Capital.īut the nurse, Eliza T. The seven-inch-wide, five-inch-high bowl, used by the church to hold water for baptisms, had been taken in 1861 by a nurse who feared Union forces were about to burn down the original Lewinsville church. But it was a piece of porcelain with quite a bit of meaning to Lewinsville Presbyterian Church in Fairfax County, and its arrival earlier this month was the final chapter in a saga that began during the Civil War. The cardboard box delivered by UPS from Wisconsin carried what looked like an ordinary white fruit bowl. ![]()
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