The forerunner to the Falls Church appears to have been founded by landowner William Gunnell, who had moved from Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1729.

Known as "William Gunnell's Church", the new wooden structure was designed and built by Colonel Richard Blackburn, who was directed to construct a weatherboarded building forty feet by twenty-two feet, with a 13:12 pitch roof, and with interior work modeled on that of Pohick Church; the cost was 33,500 pounds of tobacco.

Michael Reagan allowed the church to be built on his land, but failed to grant the deed.

John Trammell later bought the land and, in 1746, sold the two acre lot, including the church, the churchyard, and a spring, to the vestry of Truro Parish.

[7] Francis Scott Key was a lay reader of this congregation, as was Henry Fairfax, who used his own funds to restore the building during 1838 and 1839.

The interior was repaired after the war, with the Federal government paying for damage caused by Union forces.

Some of these repairs can be discerned in brickwork below the windows and in the lower part of the brick doorway at the west end of the church.

In March 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the Falls Church Anglican, ending the matter.