In those fifteen years the four-cell jail saw death and disease from neglectful conditions.

A two-story sandstone addition was added onto the original brick structure to serve as a kitchen and second floor bedroom.

It was operated as a jail until 1966, when the Fauquier Historical Society saved it from demolition and created a museum.

[1] The first execution of criminals condemned to suffer capital punishment in Virginia since the passage of the law, by the last General Assembly, requiring the sentence to be executed in private, occurred at the jail on July 11, 1879.

[4] This article about a property in Fauquier County, Virginia on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.