The other day the better half and I were driving along Route One south of Alexandria. Passing by Fort Belvoir, we noticed a brown-colored roadside sign that said, “Historic Route One.”
I was pleased to see the sign and its northbound counterpart. They are an indication of the way the county and the Southeast Fairfax County Development Corporation are embracing and have been embracing the history of Route One and the Richmond Corridor.
On the way back home, I looked to see if there were other examples of the sign north of Fort Belvoir and up to Alexandria, a seven mile stretch that makes up the rest of Richmond Highway Corridor.
As far as I can tell, nary a one.
I’m not sure if the fact there is just the one pair means anything. Perhaps the county has plans for a couple of more and is awaiting funding to erect others.
Or perhaps there are different perceptions about the history of this part of Route One. The only extant colonial structures between the Beltway and Lorton and visible from the highway are Woodlawn and Pohick Church. And, of course, Mount Vernon is a mecca.
Today we’re going to try and capture the history of Richmond Corridor as a whole unit. Turning back the clock to the middle of the eighteenth century, we’ll take a look at the dozen or so tobacco planters who owned land along the Richmond Highway Corridor.
With a multitude of places along Route One named after Mount Vernon, one gets the impression much of Southeast Fairfax County was once one big spread of land owned by our beloved founding father. Washington certainly owned his fair share of land, as did his George Mason.
Towards the end of the colonial era, however, there were more than a dozen planters and land owners all along what we today call the Richmond Highway Corridor. Some had land approaching the amount Washington held.
This is certainly not an easy aspect of history to talk about. The vast majority of these tobacco planters used chattel slavery as their labor and capital.
Mason helped pen heady declarations for the rights of man, and Washington’s courageous leadership and fortitude made the difference in the Continental Army’s defeat of the enemy in the Revolutionary War.
At the same time, the people these planters enslaved thirsted for their freedom, too. Forced into the bottom of a ship like so much cargo, the first enslaved humans arrived in Virginia in 1619. By 1750, there were 300,000 slaves in the colony. These human beings had to endure hot summers, cold winters, back-breaking work, primitive living and working conditions, sleeping on hard dirt beds, poor diets, sexual assault, and severe punishments. Ads to buy or sell enslaved humans treated them like property. A successful escape from a wicked master might mean never seeing loved ones again. An unsuccessful escape meant a beating or worse. The new nation’s Constitution said slaves were three-fifths a person. The brightest minds of the day told everyone they were subhumans. Jefferson wrote and many others agreed they were an inferior species.
Today we put aside this great paradox and take a look at these planters as money makers and their roles in the county. We cannot fully understand the history of the Richmond Corridor Highway without doing so.
Long before the European colonists arrived in the New World, indigenous peoples called our area home. Native Americans fished and hunted along places like Great Hunting Creek and the other inlet waterways south of Alexandria. These creeks — Little Hunting, Dogue, Accotink, Pohick, Occoquan — formed a series of necks along the banks of the Potomac River.
The American Indians knew these waters and land like the back of their hand. They settled in villages, caught game and fish, and grew maize, squash and beans.
The seventeenth century was not a good period of time for these peoples. The European colonists pushed and shoved and almost completely displaced them. All that seemed to remain were the rivers and creeks named after their tribes, and the overland routes they had carved out.
Frederick Tilp wrote about the planters in Virginia. He called it a Tobacco Society and a “world unto itself.”
Growing the weed could mean big money for the planters. On the other hand, they had their ups and downs financially and debt was a problem.
Another challenge the planters faced was the way tobacco depleted the soils. In search of fresh fields, the tidewater planters moved northward from the banks of the James and York rivers and into what we call Northern Virginia today.
For many years the planters had kept the same method of getting their yields to the river. “Rolling roads” were chopped out from the woodlands and ran from each plantation to a landing along the Potomac. The tall ships from London, Bristol and Glasgow arrived there and discharged the goods and household items ordered from the merchants in the Mother Country. They then loaded up the wooden barrels stuffed with the cured Orinoco tobacco leafs, and moved along to the next landing.
The planters were their own bosses, but ultimately they had to answer to the investors in the colony, who found this method of shipping as inefficient. The Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730 required the planters to come up with designated seaports. Each one was to have a public warehouse to store the tobacco, and an inspector to ensure the weed in each hog head-shaped wooden barrel was not cut with tobacco of poor quality.
This mandate helped give birth to Alexandria. Founded in 1749, the seaport lay along a crescent shaped bay and was located a few miles below the most northern point of navigation for the tall ships (near Georgetown).
We should all thank Hugh West, whose tobacco warehouses and wharf were in operation ten years before Alexandria was founded. Its site is West’s Point, at the foot of Oronoco.
Other ports such as Dumfries sprang up, but soon faltered. Silting from the tobacco fields ruined the inlet waterway and doomed the town’s bright future.
With a riverside locale and deep enough port waters, Alexandria had no such problems. Founded in 1749 by trustees such as West, Colonel William Fairfax, John Carlyle and Lawrence Washington (George Washington became a trustee in 1763), the town took off like a prized race horse.
“Fairfax County: A History,” tells us the great land boom in northern Virginia came between 1720-1732. Much of this was land speculation. The buying spree caught the attention of Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, who had inherited all the land (over 5M acres) that we know as Northern Virginia in the 1730s. Thomas waved goodbye to his cozy lifestyle in Leeds, England, landed in the New World, and laid claim to his kingdom of mostly wilderness.
1742 was a big year for the Fairfax family. Thomas hired his cousin, Colonel William Fairfax, to serve as his land agent. Colonel Fairfax had just built Belvoir, the finest home for miles around, and submitted the papers that created Fairfax County out of the northern half of Prince William County. Colonel Fairfax and his family moved into Belvoir.
For a short, but shining period of time, Belvoir was the center of the universe in this part of the colony. Bryan, who would become Eighth Lord Fairfax, grew up at Belvoir. Lawrence Washington, eldest half-brother of George Washington, and John Carlyle, the famed merchant of Alexandria, married Fairfax daughters at Belvoir.
By the 1760s, all the land south of the city along what is now the Richmond Highway was a set of parcels owned mostly by tobacco planters. These were not the giants such as Landon Carter who owned tens of thousands of acres, or even William Fitzhugh, who seemed to own half of Fairfax County. Nevertheless, these planters held considerable sway and power in the county in its infant stages.
Beth Mitchell and her gift to the ages — “Fairfax County, Virginia In 1760, An Interpretive Map,” shows us where these landowners were located in Fairfax County.
On her map one can see two roads running from Pohick Church to Alexandria. Telegraph Road runs along what was called the “interior road,” which was the main road for travelers. Route One, more or less, runs along the “River Road.” All along this road was a set of plantations. In effect, this was a planter’s row (no pun intended).
Some planters hired leaseholders and tenants. Mitchell tells us the county required leaseholders to build a dwelling at least sixteen by twenty and a tobacco barn thirty by twenty. The landscape was dotted with these simple wooden structures, the related outbuildings and slave quarters.
A few of these planters also operated flour mills. A replica of Washington’s Grist Mill stands just off Route One. Benjamin Harrison (1733-1768) operated his along modern day Colchester Road, where it crosses Pohick Creek.
The following is a list of the biggest land owners along the Richmond Highway Corridor, with the modern day location of their land and short biographical info.
The list is in order of south to north along Route One and starting at Pohick Church and ending at Great Hunting Creek, the border between Alexandria and Fairfax County.
Please note that some of these planters owned property adjacent or near to the ones seen in the overlay map. Showing all those parcels is beyond the scope of this article.
Robert Hoggess, Lorton
A time traveller who can’t get a seat to Mount Vernon could do well with Robert Hoggess (1707-1773). He owned an ordinary and a race track at modern day Route One and Telegraph Road. He also ran a mill somewhere near modern day Laurel Hill Golf Club in Lorton. Founders Online tells us Hoggess was a long time vestryman of Truro Parish and lived at La Grange (destroyed), whose site is near the pollution control plant at 9501 Old Colchester Road.
Daniel McCarty, Accotink
Daniel McCarty (1725-1792) was the son of Major Dennis McCarty (1704-1742), who represented Accotink in the House of Burgess and served as vestryman for the Truro Parish. Dennis married Sarah Ball, a second cousin of George Washington. McCarty was close friends with Washington.
Cedar Grove, the McCarty family home, was located close to the banks of the Potomac River and Accotink Creek. The house, described as a “low rambling frame house: is long gone but the family cemetery lies there on Fort Belvoir property.
Dennis McCarty also built Mount Air, a home whose site and ruins are located just off Telegraph Road, about a half mile from the Fairfax County Parkway. These ruins have interpretive markers and are accessible to the public. Mount Air was probably built in the 1730s.
Daniel, who achieved the rank of Colonel, lived here from about 1750 to his death in 1792. He was also a trustee for the town of Colchester and a tobacco inspector. He also served as a Justice in the county and oversaw financial matters for the Truro Parish. McCarty dined with the Washingtons at Mount Vernon and George supped at Cedar Grove. The two also conducted business together.
Daniel French, Fort Belvoir
Daniel French (1723-1771) owned a spot of land between Dogue Creek and Washington’s large spread at Mount Vernon, occupied today by residents of River Village on the eastern edge of Fort Belvoir.
French built Pohick Church, which stands today as the rare reminder of the eighteenth century. Pohick and Christ Church in Alexandria were completed around the same time (early 1770s).
French lived at Rose Hill, whose site is at 6412 May Boulevard.
A county marker nearby points out:
The community of Rose Hill was created in 1954. The land was part of an eighteenth century plantation known as Rose Hill, established by Daniel French, the builder of Pohick Church… The original frame house was destroyed by fire in 1895.
Charles West, Woodlawn
West owned a tract of about 500 acres. The eastern boundary of his land is marked today by Jeff Todd Way and includes portions of Fort Belvoir on the north side of Route One. It also included Gray’s Hill, a spot overlooking Mount Vernon, a place that appealed to Washington.
Washington bought West’s land in 1772. In 1799, he financed the building of Woodlawn, and chose the Gray Hill location.
In 1758 Nicholas Minor, father-in-law of George West, urged the establishment of Leesburg as the Loudoun County seat. The General Assembly approved, and William West becoming one of Leesburg’s founding trustees.
George William Fairfax, Fort Belvoir
Much has been written about the relationship between George Washington and Sally Fairfax. Many wonder if their relationship was ever consummated.
In some ways, the answer (likely, no) lies with George William Fairfax, Sally’s husband and close friend of Washington. Crossing the line for Washington would have had severe consequences, including his friendship with George William Fairfax. Their relationship, and George’s relationship with the Fairfax family, had solidified when Lawrence Washington (George’s half-brother) married Colonel William Fairfax’s daughter Ann. To say the least, Washington benefitted greatly from his friendship with the Fairfax family.
George William Fairfax inherited Belvoir in 1757. He and Sally, who had no children, eventually left for England and did not return. Belvoir burned down to a brick shell in 1780 and was finished off by the British during the War of 1812. Fort Belvoir cares for its ruins and historical site, which is listed on the National Register for Historic Places.
George Washington, Mount Vernon
Pulling up his bootstraps and mounting many a horse, George Washington made himself into the leader he became. He would, however, likely be the first to tell you he had help, including the Fairfax family.
Parlaying his friendship with the Fairfax family and earning praise for his leadership during the French and Indian War, George Washington was a rising star in the colony of Virginia. In 1759, the strapping and polished gentleman married Martha Dandridge Custis, a very wealthy widow born about twenty-five miles east of Richmond.
Despite these gains, Washington struggled financially as a planter in the early 1760s. Through diversification of crops, however, he flipped his fortunes. Washington took a simple farm house his father had built in the 1740s, and expanded it into the iconic home Mount Vernon is today.
Like all planters, Washington was full aware of the deep chasm between liberty and freedom for white men and enslaved African Americans. He ultimately freed his slaves, but like all planters, he also took measures to ensure they worked hard each day and punished those who had tried to escape. As told by Erica Dunbar (“Never Caught”), Washington went to great lengths to capture Ona Judge, born into slavery at Mount Vernon and what we would call today Martha’s personal assistance. Washington even broke the law by not registering her when they went to Philadelphia.
Thomas Hanson Marshall, South County
Marshall (1731-1795), who lived in Maryland, had what one writer called a “friendly rivalry” with Washington. Washington owned hundreds of acres on the neck between Dogue and Little Hunting Creek. He desired even more. Washington began acquiring tracts up to and even on the other side of the river road.
One of those tracts belong to Marshall. Through a complicated three-owner land swap, Washington eventually gained title to Marshall’s land at modern day Buckman Road and Sacramento Road.
Marshall owned and lived at Marshall Hall, whose brick wall remains stand across the river from Mount Vernon. Posey’s Ferry ran between the two. Marshall inherited Marshall Hall from his father and married Rebecca Dent.
William Peake, Gum Springs
Just off Route One on the southern edge of Hybla Valley lies the historic African-American community of Gum Springs. The center of life there takes place at the Gum Springs Community Center. Ron Chase wonderfully tells the history of Gum Springs at the co-located museum.
Step behind the building and you will find the Martin Luther King Jr. Park and the Peake family cemetery. Steps away, Little Hunting Creek widens from a thiner trace.
Founders Online tells us William Peake (d. 1761) lived at Willow Spring, located somewhere in the fork of Little Hunting Creek and perhaps very close to the Gum Springs Community Center. This proximity made Peake Washington’s closest neighbor. The two hunted foxes and hosted each other.
Peake was a Truro Parish vestryman. When he died, the members of the vestry chose Washington as his replacement.
In the 1830s, the Gum Spring Farm, a low lying area that was prone to flooding, fell out of the Peake family. In 1837, West Ford, a free African American purchased the farm from Samuel Collard. Thus began a remarkable story of a historically black community that thrives to this very day.
George Mason, Huntley Meadows, Hybla Valley, Hollin Hall and others
Mason built Gunston Hall, a Georgian manor overlooking the Potomac and on a neck of land about five miles away from the Potomac Path. Until Belvoir burned in 1781, Gunston Hall, Belvoir and Mount Vernon lined up like stars in a constellation.
Mason owned 8,200 acres, bested in Fairfax County only by Henry and William Fitzhugh and Robert “King” Carter’s heirs. In addition to his holdings at Gunston Hall, Mason also owned land on modern day Hybla Valley and the Hollin Hall neighborhood. Sherwood Hall Lane and the Paul Spring Branch creek split the latter.
In the 1780s, Mason gave his Hollin Hall lands to his son, Thomson Mason, who married Sarah McCarty Chichester.
They built a house there in the late 1780s and grew wheat, which had replaced tobacco as the main crop. Their son inherited the home, which burned down in 1824. “Little Hollin Hall” survived.
One of his grandsons, Thomson Francis Mason, built Huntley in 1820, a country villa which still stands today and overlooks Hybla Valley and Huntley Meadows.
Mason and Washington worked together in the years leading up to the American Revolution, including meetings in Alexandria.
William Clifton, Groveton and Waynewood
We’re out of the valley now and headed up the hill past Lockheed Boulevard to a plateau of land we know as Beacon Hill. It’s a distinct transition, as views of the DMV come in to play.
The community of Groveton anchors Beacon Hill. This crown of land had several owners in the 1760s.
William Clifton (1704-1770) owned the hillside acres to the east of the main road, land that includes neighborhoods along Popkins Lane and running along Paul Branch creek.
Clifton was an English immigrant and a friend of Washington. In 1739, he inherited a 1,800 acres of land along the Potomac River. Some have called this the Piscataway Neck or the Clifton’s Neck. This is the Fort Hunt part of the Mount Vernon area where the GW Parkway button hooks about two miles from Mount Vernon.
Collingwood Road seems to be the modern day equivalent of the road from his ferry (modern day Collingwood Library and Museum at River Park) to Route One. In 1757, Clifton built a house up the steep hill from the ferry. As noted by the AHS website, the home was enlarged and remodeled over the course of two centuries and serves as their headquarters.
The home is known as River Farm. Washington purchased Clifton’s Neck in 1760 and renamed it River Farm.
Not as much is known about Clifton’s farm land along the main road.
Sampson Darrell II, Groveton
Some of these planters owned multiple tracts of land. In some cases they were not contiguous.
This was the case with Sampson Darrell II (d, 1777). He owned land on the west side of the river road and across from William Clifton’s lands. and close to Mount Vernon. Founders Online tells us Washington acquired 500 acres of land from Darrell in 1757. This was a significant purchase, adding 500 acres to his already 2,162 acres.
The Groveton VA website touches on the life of Darrell II, who was the son of William and Ann Fowke Mason and a legal ward of his uncle George Mason II until he was 21 years old.
In her book, Charlotte Brown tells us about Darrell II. His grandfather, Sampson Darrell, acquired tracts of land in the area in the late 17th century.
Almost all of these planters held positions in the county government. Samson Darrell II was no exception. He served as a Fairfax County Justice, as well as with the militia during the French and Indian War. In one particular legal case, he sat shoulder to shoulder on the bench with fellow justices and neighbors — Daniel McCarty, George Mason, John West, and John West, Jr.
These planters also typically counted the number of their children on two hands. Darrell II and his wife Mary had eight.
Brown writes that one of them, Ann, married Commodore Walter Brooke. Brooke was the first Commodore in the Virginia Navy in the Revolutionary War 1777-1778. The couple lived at a stone mansion home known as Retirement, a landmark home tucked away in the nearby Stoneybrooke neighborhood. A certified history, vis a vis the National Register for Historic Places, has not been written for this home. In the 1940s, portions of the original home were added on to.
This plot of land overlooking Huntley Meadows was owned in 1760 by Sarah Brook. She was a non-resident and did not own slaves. Brook was also the rare woman land owner on Mitchell’s map.
Colonel John West, Groveton
Jim Bish has done exhaustive research on the West family. He points out Colonel John West (1710-1776) was one of the most respected men of his time in Alexandria and Fairfax County. West lived at West Grove, the family ancestral home whose site is Belle Haven Country Club. Built in the early part of the 18th century, the brick manor was older than Mount Vernon. In a fit of anger, Union soldiers torched it during the Civil War.
West served as a Vestryman at Fairfax Parish and Burgess of Fairfax County for a total of 18 years, an extraordinary accomplishment.
In addition to West Grove, the family’s brick home and plantation overlooking Alexandria, West owned this parcel of land on both sides of the river road.
This parcel was located partially in Penn-Daw, where the county has plans for an urban park.
John Colville, Huntington and Penn-Daw
Huntington could have been named Colville, for it was John Colville who owned Cleesh, a large spread of land south of Great Hunting Creek. Colville was what we call today a player. In 1740 he paired with Colonel Fairfax of Belvoir to acquire many tracts in what would soon become Fairfax County. Much of this was for speculative purposes.
Donald A. Wise wrote a nice primer on Colville (1690-1755). An English colonist, he came from Newcastle on Tyne. Colville wore many hats, including a Vestryman of Truro Parish, Justice of the Peace, a Colonial in the militia, and a planter. Colville owned his own ship and ran it along the Potomac in the 1730s. In 1735, fourteen years before Alexandria was founded, he purchased a plantation on the south side of Great Hunting Creek and called it Cleesh. From 1743-1747, he was appointed to a seat in the Virginia Assembly. Colville passed away in 1756. His brother Thomas Colville (1688-1766) inherited Cleesh. Washington assisted with the execution of the will. Thomas Colville died at Cleesh in 1766.
Planters and land owners, many of whom were in positions of leadership, were expected to be what we call a “straight arrow.” Colville apparently got in some trouble this way, being accused of fornication. No other information can be found on his case.
Conclusion
The planters we have looked at were part and parcel of the first decades of Fairfax County. This era along Route One ended around the time of the Revolutionary War. As pointed out by the Encyclopedia Virginia, the General Assembly had prohibited sending anymore tobacco to England. In that pivotal year of 1776, when Washington led his cold and bedraggled troops into battle, and his fellow Virginians helped hammer out a Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, tobacco production plummeted from 55 million pounds to 14.5. Most planters, however, had already begun growing food crops such as wheat.
Other than Mount Vernon and Pohick Church, there is very little along the Richmond Corridor to remind us of these planters. That’s probably why the Historic Route sign is located near those two places. But as we have seen, there is colonial history all up and down the Richmond Highway in Southeast Fairfax County.
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