Fairfax County has done a terrific job with their Inventory of Historic Sites. One puzzling omission, however, is Mount Zephyr. Not sure why that is, perhaps it has gotten lost in the Mount Vernon shuffle so to speak.
But that’s just it. The story of Mount Zephyr, a sleepy set of 1940s era homes nestled between Route One and Mount Vernon Road, begins with George Washington’s plantation.
A couple of years ago, I took a brief look at the history of Mount Zephyr. Let’s start with that and try and do a better job.
Like all the lands of Northern Virginia, this patch between Dogue Creek and Little Hunting Creek was part of the Northern Neck land grant. Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, holder of the English peerage, owned the proprietary rights.
By the 1760s, these parts of Fairfax County consisted of small tobacco plantations. These planters, George Mason among them, made their money using enslaved labor.
From his plantation home on the Potomac, George Washington acquired enough land to hold five farms - Mansion House, River, Union, Dogue Run and Muddy Hole.
Anyone visiting Mount Vernon or traveling north to south along the Potomac Path (modern day Route One) would have first seen the Muddy Hole Farm. Hugging Little Hunting Creek, it was located just south of a gum tree, a place we know today as the historically-black community of Gum Springs. Washington might have bought even more land here but the drainage was poor.
Note: Source for Muddy Hole Farm location: "The Five Farms Map," Surveyed and drawn by George Washington, 1793. Pincushion info source: Mike Bohn, "Mount Vernon Revisited."
Muddy Hole Farm first shows up in Washington’s diary in June 1758. It was a busy year for the rising star. He doubled the size of the plantation home and acquired more land for his farms. He courted and married Martha Parke Custis, a wealthy widower. He ran and won a seat in the House of Burgess. He also performed his duties on the frontier as a colonel in the Virginia Regiment, fighting off the British and Indian forces at modern day Pittsburgh.
The 1760s were also a time when Washington began to steer away from growing tobacco. The "noxious weed" depleted the soils. The wise planters like Washington began to rotate their crops. Muddy Hole Farm produced tobacco, corn, wheat, rye, oats, turnips, carrots, and corn.
Founders Online is a goal mine source for insight into life at Mount Vernon and its farms. In a diary entry in 1761 Washington listed his “servants” at Muddy Hole — Edward, Violette, Grig, Dublin, James, Sam, Grace, Ruth, Kate, Hannah, Phoebe and Betty. Violette was the overseer.
Founders Online also tells us Davy Gray, a mulatto dower slave, lived and worked at Muddy Hole Farm. Most of the overseers were white but a few like Gray worked their way to supervisor. Washington praised his work at one point.
Ron Chernow writes poignantly about Washington in his final year at Mount Vernon. Slowed down by old age, he found riding his horse painful and difficult. Washington had always set high marks for himself. He felt sad he “had never made Mount Vernon the thriving productive enterprise he wanted.”
In his final months, Washington managed three of his farms himself. One of them was Muddy Hole. Three days before he took his last breathe in his upstairs bedroom, Washington pulled out his quill pen and wrote a letter to James Anderson. Drawing on all his decades of experience as a planter, the retired President poured out with passion his instructions on what to do with the five farms.
After Washington passed away in 1799, Bushrod Washington Sr. (1762-1829), George’s nephew, inherited Mount Vernon, Union Farm and Muddy Hole Farm. Washington had been a meticulous planter, constantly checking on the state of his properties. Bushrod cared more about the goings on in the halls in Williamsburg and Washington. In 1798, President Thomas Jefferson had appointed him as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court.
At some point, his son, Bushrod Jr. (1785-1830) took over operations of the farm, which by then, was referred to as Mount Zephyr. In 1826, a family trustee placed an ad in the Alexandria Gazette. The residence and all properties of Brushrod Jr. were sold at auction.
In 1830, John Augustine Washington III inherited the entire Mount Vernon estate. Sad to say, the house and farms had become a white elephant. As Emily Dibella observes (“The Formation of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association”), Washington’s heirs were burdened by hordes of travelers who sometimes pilfered souvenirs. With no money coming in, the house fell into a sorry state.
Twenty years later, with the sacred home still neglected, Ann Pamela Cunningham and the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association came to the rescue. Their actions marked the beginnings of the preservation movement in the United States.
Meanwhile, over at Mount Zephyr, a Quaker from New York City rode in like the calvary. Quakers worked hard on these southern farms and most all lived up to the ideals of good character. It sounds like Leggett may have not been a role model this way. In his book, Jonathon Roberts, ("The Civil War’s Quaker Scout and Sheriff,") Gregory P. Wilson describes Leggett as a “colorful character.”
On the other hand, Leggett worked hard. Among the improvements he made to Mount Zephyr was the construction of a large barn. Caleb Cushing, who was serving as Attorney General in the Pierce administration, visited the area and wrote a travel piece praising Leggett’s work.
"The History of Mount Zephyr" article tells us more about the barn. Just 1000 feet from the main road and with dimensions of 107 by 43, the stone and wood structure would have marveled the passerby. The apparent site is the northern corner of Washington Avenue and Woodley Drive.
Wilson tells us Leggett did not use enslaved labor in the fields, but retained an enslaved woman, Daphne Kelley, as a member of the household. Upon Leggett’s death in 1860, his will emancipated her, her husband, children and a grandchildren.
In May 1864, a Henry McWilliams purchased Mount Zephyr. In 1873 the Gazette informed its readers the owners planned to rebuild the mansion house after a fire had destroyed it.
Leggett, who was born and raised in New York City, sold the farm in 1860. Everything went — “the Mansion House, one of the most commodious barns in the state, a large garden, 900 pure blooded Merino Sheep and Lambs, 35 head of cattle, farming equipment, house and kitchen furniture."
After the war, very little news came out about Mount Zephyr. Like the rest of the South, Fairfax County was recovering from the war. For the descendants of those enslaved African Americans who had worked the fields of Muddy Hole Farm, the period of Reconstruction brought bitter fruit. The gains initially made were crushed by the conservatives and ex-Confederates in power. Even transplanted Northerners began to whistle Dixie.
On the other hand, some of those descendants might have felt great pride towards the Gum Springs community that began to thrive in the 1870s. A school and a church were a point of pride.
Mount Zephyr was back in the news in 1886 when Park Agnew, a wealthy shipping magnate in Alexandria, bought the property. Despite the poor condition of the farm, what an acquisition it must have been, the land once owned by George Washington.
In July 1913, an article in the Society section of The Washington Post noted that Mrs. John P. Agnew and Misses Agnew left during the week for Mount Zephyr, their summer home. In September, the same section reported that Mrs. C.C. Offley, wife of Commander C.N. Offley of Annapolis were guests there.
After Agnew passed away, his son inherited the property. This was a time when the sons and daughters of farmers in Fairfax County began to see the value of the farm land as future residential property.
Agnew sold Mount Zephyr to a developer in 1938. Although not yet in the large numbers that would come by mid-century, Washington had growing pains. This part of Fairfax County saw some of the first suburban neighborhoods sprout up. By 1937, about two dozen homes were built in Groveton.
On a 1937 aerial view, one can still see the signature of the Muddy Hole Farm between Little Hunting Creek and a grove of trees.
In 1946, the Bo-Mar Corporation requested the rezoning of lots at Mount Zephyr from rural residential to general business. This was likely along Route One and for a shopping center.
A 1953 aerial shows the beginning of the Mount Zephyr neighborhood. Homes are seen along the avenues of Radford, Washington, and Richmond, and a few along Mount Zephyr Drive. This is south of the site of the Muddy Hole Farms, but on and near the site of the home and barn.
It’s not easy for a suburban neighborhood to stand out when mass production was the name of the game. Nevertheless, Mount Zephyr has some flair to it. Cape Cods are stock, but some of the first homes were made with Tennessee Crab Orchard Stone (square cut and puzzle-fitting). Green space remains at places such as Mount Vernon Community Park.
A recent point of pride for Mount Zephyr arrived last fall with the installation of a county historical marker for Mount Vernon High School. The original school was located on land a short distance from the site of Muddy Hole Farm and Mount Zephyr. The school opened in 1938 and served local students until 1975.
The neighborhood today shows community pride with landscaping and mowed yards.
The famed planter would have been pleased.
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