This John Rixey attended local schools and Bethel Academy, then studied law at the University of Virginia.

[4] In 1896, Democratic Congressman Elisha E. Meredith retired to his legal practice, and voters in Virginia's 8th congressional district elected Rixey to the 55th Congress.

Beginning in his third Congressional term, Rixey proposed to place all Civil War veterans in the same class with respect to federal and state soldiers' homes.

He also hosted President Theodore Roosevelt at Beauregard during his visit to Culpeper county and Cedar Run battlefield in 1902.

[5] Rixey also introduced bills to create Manassas Battlefield Park, as advocated by constituents Edmund Berkeley and George Carr Round, although none passed until decades after his unexpectedly early death.