The historic 18th-century house of a prominent early Virginia Baptist peacher may be rebuilt at Eagle Eyrie Baptist Conference Center.
The Virginia Baptist Mission Board's Eagle Eyrie committee has agreed in principle to allow Moorefield, originally built in 1790 by Jeremiah Moore, to be reconstructed at the conference center as as an educational exhibit.
Committee chair Tim Madison of Madison Heights said many details still need to be finalized before undertaking the project.
Jeremiah Moore was a strong proponent of religious liberty from 1772 until his death in 1815. He helped establish First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and First Baptist Church in Alexandria, which he served as its first pastor.
A former lay reader in the Anglican Church, he worked for the disestablishment of that church and to secure for all religious dissenters “liberty to preach in all proper places, and at all seasons, without restraints.”
He helped collect 10,000 signatures for a petition calling for disestablishment and personally handed the petition to then-governor Thomas Jefferson.
In 1790, Moore built Moorefield near what is now the Vienna station on Washington's Metro line and lived there until he died in 1815. Built in the “planter” style, it was larger than typical, perhaps because it was used as a meeting place for local Baptists.
Additions and modifications were made to the house over the years and it was contiually occupied until 1972. For 30 years it lay empty and deteriorated. In 2003, a group of citizens formed the Jeremiah Moore Historical and Educational Association, and bought the house and dismantled it, placing the materials in storage in Northern Virginia.
If reconstructed at Eagle Eyrie, the house would serve to educate Virginia Baptists and others about the significant role of freedom of religion in Virginia and the nation.
The Eagle Eyrie committee has asked Mission Board executive director John Upton to name a commission to oversee the project.
Staff report