“Jay, do you know anything about some small ruins near the intersection of King’s Highway and Telegraph Road?”
That was one of the handful of questions folks asked me on the tour I gave last month.
“Is it hidden in the woods,” I asked, “on the hill near the western side parking lot of Huntley Meadows?”
“Yes.”
Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind popped out - Okeley.
Had there been tours of the area south of Alexandria during the antebellum period, the guides could have chosen from a handful of landmark country homes that dotted the land we know as Southeast Fairfax County.
Picture the guide and his horse and buggy picking up his passengers at a sagging wooden wharf on the seaport's edge, clopping up King Street past the stores and shops, making a left on Henry Street, and moving across the wooden bridge the city had built in the 1820s, the first span across Great Hunting Creek at about the same spot we cross over the Capital Beltway.
First stop, Mount Eagle, sitting atop of the hill overlooking Alexandria, the Potomac River, and the Cameron Valley. Bryan Fairfax, best friend of George Washington, lived here. Before he passed away in 1802, the Eighth Lord Fairfax could have watched the first part of the new Federal capital go up, about a half dozen miles from his lofty perch.
The next attraction stood two steep hills away at a place we call Penn-Daw. "Look, ladies and gentlemen, Spring Bank and its impressive brick manor, one of a kind in these parts.
With too much time involved with a trip to Mount Vernon, and the roads in their usual terrible condition, the tour might have headed to the south and west instead, down a gravel road we know today as S. King’s Highway. About a mile from Spring Bang, the cry of “Whoa Nellie” signaled the next stop. “Huntley,” the guide might have said, “is the Federal style villa home of Thomson Francis Mason.” Mayor of the Alexandria and a prominent barrister, Mason lived primarily at Colross, his urban mansion in the city.
Standing in Huntley’s front yard, overlooking what we know today as Huntley Meadows and Hybla Valley, the tour guide would have surely told his audience about the tobacco plantations that spread across these lands in the eighteenth century. Washington and Mason owned the largest tracts. The other owners were a "Who's Who."
The tour guide also might have pointed due west and said - "Yonder about a mile away on top of that hill stands Okeley, another home of a Mason grandson.”
Homes and their sites give us the opportunity to learn more about the people who built and lived in them and the periods of history they lived through.
Among other things, Mount Eagle tells us about the special relationship between Bryan, Eighth Lord Fairfax and Washington, one that continued through the revolution and the war. Spring Bank opens the window to a southern point of view and the uplifting story of the Quanders. Huntley shines a light on the wealth and influence of people like Thomas Francis Mason, and the stark contrast between such privilege and power and the plight of enslaved humans.
The stories of destroyed historic homes in our area might be classified into those whose stories we have rescued and those we have not. Okeley, which didn’t even make the cut for the book, “Fairfax City, Virginia, A History,” sits in the latter category.
A small Wiki entry breathes some life into Okeley. Until I started digging to answer the man’s question, I confess I knew next to nothing about it.
Lost to a fire during the Civil War, Okeley opens up a book on the life of Dr. Richard Chicester Mason (1793-1869), one of his sons, and the land on and around Huntley Meadows. Let’s take a look.
During colonial times, creeks and streams served as guideposts and boundary markers between tracts of land. For example, north of Four Mile Run stood the Abingdon plantation. North of Great Hunting Creek stood Alexandria. The necks along the Potomac sometimes made distinct borders between landholders.
In 1757, George Mason, a County Burgess and still years away from earning fame with his quill pen, bought a large tract of land between Dogue Creek and Little Hunting Creek. This tract and others can be seen on Beth Mitchell’s 1760 map of Fairfax County. Much of this land is Huntley Meadows. Precious are these 1,500 acres of unspoiled wetlands, lying like an oasis about three miles south of Alexandria.
George Mason sired a dozen children. The fifth was Thomson Mason (1759-1820). According to the Gunston Hall website, Mason served in several key positions in Alexandria, including Collector of the Port. In Fairfax County, he wore the robes of Justice of Peace. After living in Gunston Hall, Mason, his wife Sarah McCarty Chichester, and their first two children moved into a new home, Hollin Hall, in 1788.
When his father, George Mason, passed away in 1789, Thomson inherited the tract of land between the two creeks. In 1817, he divided this tract of land between his first son, Thomson Francis Mason (1785-1838) and his third, Richard Chichester Mason (1793-1869).
Five years later, Thomson Frances Mason built Huntley, a summer villa on the hill overlooking the rest of his property. Mount Vernon stood four miles to the south, Alexandria about the same distance to the north.
Both these two grandsons of George Mason were achievers. Thomson Francis Mason served in many important capacities in the city, including mayor, and was beloved by many.
Richard C. Mason made a name for himself, too. The Alexandria Gazette covers some of his life and career. He took a practice as a doctor of Medicine and Surgery on the 100 block of N. Fairfax. He seemed to parlay the esteem of that position into a career in politics.
In 1824, Mason won the election for Delegate to the Virginia Assembly for Fairfax County. In 1833, he was announced as a candidate for Congress for the counties of Fairfax, Loudoun and Fauquier, the rural parts fanning out west and south of Alexandria. Two years later Mason was appointed chief clerk and treasurer of the Post Office Department and later served as Commissioner of the Public Roads.
Birthdays kept Mason and his wife, Lucy Rolling Randolph, busy. They had sixteen children.
In 1839, Whigs and Conservatives met in Fairfax County. Mason gave the keynote address. The Gazette described his effort as a “manly, independent, and patriotic effort which did him honor.”
Before passing away in 1869, Mason stayed very active in local politics, serving as the Chief Justice on the 1860 Secessionist Government of Virginia (Fairfax County).
According to the Huntley Meadows website, Mason returned home after the Civil War and discovered his home had been burned down. Some sources say it was a hospital, and was burned to prevent the spread of smallpox. The Gazette’s coverage noted, “the case is to be investigated by military authorities.”
When he passed away, Mason's obit noted he was “an old influential, and highly esteemed citizen of Fairfax County.”
Sadly, there's not much information on Okeley. George Washington Ball shines a brief light with a rare description. In addition to the map he drew, he jotted down some of his memories. Mason was Ball's uncle and managed his finances. Ball, who gave his address in 1791 as 2325 Pennsylvania Avenue, briefly reminisces about Okeley:
Where the writer as a boy living at “Okeley,” some fifty years ago, hunted squirrels, deer, and turkeys through that country the Southern end of it was still open — a ragged cane washed into gulleys, weeds nearly overgrown with pine.
Perhaps the most well known of the Masons of Okeley children was the tenth, Beverly Randolph Mason (1834-1910). During the Civil War, he rose to the rank of Major in the Confederate Army. Confederate Veteran (Volume 18) wrote a lengthy obit. Mason was honored in Washington in 1914 with a large memorial window at St Margaret’s Church. In 1822 he co-founded and served as principal at the Gunston Hall School for Girls in Washington (1904 Street, NW, demolished 1975).
Note: The magazine article includes a photograph of Mason).
After the turn of the century, Okeley fell off the radar screen until 1916, when The Washington Post reported the Slaymaker-Schneider Corporation disposed of the Okeley estate. The firm was located at 612 King Street in Alexandria and placed the following ad in the paper.
Okeley Farm. 710 acres, half cleared, in high state of cultivation. Part of remainder for pasturage. Good dairy plant in full operation. Direct market for milk in Washington, D.C. Large new stock barn.
Five years later, a J.C. Love purchased the property for its timber. The Washington Post report indicated it had "a large and commodious house if ten rooms, a very large barn, diary barn for 40 cows, corn barn, outhouses and tenant houses."
An aerial view from 1937 shows some of the farm property still there, with the main entrance at S. King’s Highway, about where Deer Run Drive is located. These were the dying days for diary farms in Fairfax County. On its way to topping the one million mark, the population in the county grew from 25,000 in 1930 to 98,000 in 1950. Some of the first suburban neighborhoods in the county sprouted up in nearby Groveton and Beacon Hill.
A 1949 aerial view reveals almost all of the property gone. South of where the house was located we see an oval shaped figure. The Huntley Meadows website tells us the Bureau of Public Roads acquired the land to test asphalt road surfaces.
In 1975, President Ford inked an agreement that sold the 1500 acres of land to Fairfax County for one dollar. Trees eventually covered the entire site of Okeley.
I hope I have answered the gentleman’s question.
Now I have one.
Can we rescue Okeley and these lost stories of the Masons and this part of Fairfax County?
Hi Jay,
This research is very interesting. I am doing research on Richard C. Mason and Okeley Manor. I would love to email you to ask some more questions about the documents you mention. My email is: [email protected].
Thanks,
Tony
Posted by: Anthony Guidone | April 05, 2021 at 07:17 PM