Historical Background

Odrick’s Corner & Shiloh Baptist Church Notable Facts

Location: Spring Hill Road between Lewinsville Road and the Dulles Toll Road

  • Shiloh Baptist Church is one of McLean’s first African American churches.

  • It’s location near the Dulles Toll Road was once a thriving African American known as Odrick’s Corner – named after Alfred Odrick, a former slave who bought 30 acres in 1872 from the Gunnell family who were prominent land owners at the time. [1]

 

  • Odrick donated the land as the future site for the church. According to Shiloh Baptist’s centennial report, “The Odrick family…took a great interest in the church and the community.” [2]

 

  • Founder and Reverend Cyrus Carter laid the original cornerstone for Shiloh Baptist Church on Sept. 25, 1887. Carter also helped establish four other Baptist churches in the area, including the First Baptist Church Chesterbrook in McLean. Carter was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and brought to the United States with his parents as slaves where he labored in Lancaster County, VA. He was emancipated before the end of the Civil War and served in the ambulance corps for the U.S. government.[3]
Rev. Cyrus Carter in front of the original Shiloh Baptist Church.
  • From the time congregants acquired the land in 1873, it took nearly 14 years to collect money for building the original church because the years following slavery made it difficult to raise funds.

 

  • Until 1873, church services had previously been conducted in the nearby Odrick’s Public School (demolished sometime after 1954). In 1926, the original Shiloh Baptist Church burned down. The rebuilt church was constructed in 1929 and renovated in 2006.[4]

 

Shiloh Baptist Church congregants 1963

  • The original cemetery for the church is located behind the Hamlet Swim Club tennis courts. It contains 16 gravestones dating from 1889 to 1936. Girl Scout Troop 6963 weeded and planted spring bulbs there in 2016.

 

Sources:

[1] Book O #4, Fairfax County Deed Book.

[2] Centennial Journal, Shiloh Baptist Church & Black Settlement in Fairfax County, Virginia During Reconstruction by Andrew M.D. Wolf, pg. 51, Fairfax County Library Reference Materials.

[3] Mansfield, Virginia. “Oldest Black Church in Fairfax Recalls Roots.” The Washington Post, June 6, 1985.

[4] Shiloh Baptist Church website – http://www.shilohbcva.net/our-story