By Paige Johnson
John “Jack” Rowe was born a slave in Fairfax County, Virginia, in April 1830. He was the slave of Thomas and Hannah (Morris) Moore of Fairfax Court House (now Fairfax City), Virginia. Jack resided with the Moore’s in their substantial frame home, the Moore House, which still stands on the northwest corner of Chain Bridge Road & North Streets in Fairfax.
On the morning of June 1, 1861, Jack was walking to work through Abner Stevenson’s clover field behind the Fairfax County Courthouse when he tripped over a dead body.
Jack had unwittingly discovered the body of Captain John Quincy Marr, of the Warren Rifles. Marr, who was from Warrenton, Fauquier County, Virginia, was killed earlier that morning in a skirmish with Union cavalry in Fairfax Court House. Marr was the first confederate officer killed in the Civil War. Jack’s discovery of Marr’s body made him something of a celebrity in Fairfax after the war.
Sometime after 1870, Jack moved his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he and his wife Winnie (formerly Winifred Wheeler) raised three sons (Maurice, Rutherford and George), and four daughters (Marie, Cinderella, Sarah and Phoebe). After Winnie’s death in 1894, Jack returned to Fairfax Court House where he was employed by the same Moore family as a servant.
Almost 50 years after Jack’s discovery of Marr’s body, he was interviewed and photographed by reporter Harry Shannon, for the Evening Star newspaper, Washington, D.C.
Jack died sometime after June 1914. The circumstances of his death and his burial location are unknown. His descendants still reside in the Philadelphia area.
It’s important to note that Jack Rowe was often referred to contemporaneously as “Uncle Jack.” Although this likely was a term of endearment by some at the time, the word “uncle” is now considered derogatory and an epithet for an exceedingly subservient person or house negro, particularly one accepting and uncritical of their own lower-class status.
Help Preserve and Protect Fairfax City's Future