The Herndon Fortnightly Club started in the summer of 1889, with a small group of eleven women who met at the Herndon Seminary on Grace Street. They formed a study club “for the mutual improvement of its members in literature, art, science and the vital interests of the day.” They decided to meet every two weeks and, thus, they called their group The Fortnightly Club.

It was the club’s passion for education and reading that ultimately led them to form Fairfax County’s first lending library. Virginia Castleman was one of the initial 11 charter women who formed the Fortnightly Club in 1889.   She graduated from Drexel’s Library School in 1899 and offered to start cataloging the club’s books and to lend them out.  In addition, the club members participated in many philanthropic, patriotic and community events over the decades, through two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Town of Herndon’s growth. The club’s long history is recounted in the booklet, “The Herndon Fortnightly Club, A History, 1889-2014.”

The eleven charter members of The Fortnightly Club were Mrs. John Barker, Miss Maria Bready, Miss Ida Castleman, Miss Lulu Castleman, Miss Virginia Castleman, Mrs. Florence Duffy, Mrs. J.W. McKeene, Miss Lillie Shear, Miss Ann Thornton, Miss Catherine Thornton and Miss Ellen Thornton. Forty books were initially collected and by the year 1900 they had collected more than a thousand books, which they kept stored in various buildings in downtown Herndon.  They also established “reading rooms.”  

In 1927 they built their own library building on Spring Street.  Mrs. Russell Lynn was the first official elected librarian for the club, when they first opened their new library building in 1927. The club members, on a voluntary basis, ran the Fortnightly Library up until the 1970s when it was incorporated into the Fairfax County Public Library system.  In the mid-1990s, a new library was built in Herndon on Center Street, maintaining the name, the Herndon Fortnightly Library.