A Little Piece of Kamp Washington

Paul Nabti

Local Planner

Posted on March 28, 2012 at 6:35 pm

A Little Piece of Kamp Washington

Kamp Washington Display at Fairfax Library Credit Paul Nabti

"If you happen to be at the Fairfax City Library in the near future, be sure check out the display case next to the elevator on the second floor for a little history on Kamp Washington and the Sherwood family.

If you happen to be at the Fairfax City Library in the near future, be sure check out the display case next to the elevator on the second floor for a little history on Kamp Washington and the Sherwood family.

Though most people outside of the city don’t have a name for the area around the intersection of Main Street, Fairfax Boulevard, and Lee Highway, for those of us inside the city it is known as Kamp Washington.  We call it this because of a small tourist camp that sat at that intersection for much of the first half of the 20^thCentury.  Despite being the namesake for one of the most prominent commercial areas of the city, it is difficult to find pictures or other documents that show what the original Kamp Washington was like.

Thanks to a donation of numerous memorabilia from the Sherwood family, and countless cataloguing hours from Ross Landis (current Planning Commission member), a lot of material on Kamp Washington is now held in the Virginia Room at the library, a sampling of which is temporarily on display.

The Sherwood family, who were active members of the Town of Fairfax community, owned a tourist home next door and eventually bought Kamp Washington.  The camp was eventually demolished to make way for commercial development, and the house was moved. 

The display has some great photos of the home and the camp, as well as various other memorabilia.  I’m not sure how long it will be up, so be sure to stop by soon."

Way To Go ROSS! 

AND,

If you want to check out the Historic Wanderings of Ross & Maddy, click below...

Sherwood Houses, Fairfax City

More Sherwood Houses, Fairfax City

Some Fairfax City Architecture

Oh, By The Way, Joseph McGill is My Hero

The Slave Dwelling Project

Click below to learn about Joseph McGill's calling:

For the 2012 Schedule, click on over to Low County Africana:

http://www.lowcountryafricana.com/2012/02/21/slave-dwelling-project-2012-schedule/

Scotland, the slave trade and the abolition pay-off which rewrote our economic history

This looks very promising!

http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/markets-economy/scotland-the-slave-trade-and-the-abolition-pay-off-which-rewrote-our-economic-history-1.1075272

Stephen Mullen at the Tobacco Merchant’s House

Stephen Mullen

19 Dec 2010


For those who care to look, Glasgow’s Merchant City is packed with clues to the city’s connections with the New World.

The restored classical glory of St Andrews in the Square is furnished in Caribbean hardwoods, while the name of Jamaica Street proclaims the city’s sugar trading past. The Tobacco Merchant’s House and the Gallery of Modern Art, once a private house, hint at an elite lifestyle as extravagant in its day as any in New York, Singapore or Dubai.

Glasgow is proud of this heritage, although even the title of the trendy quarter itself shows the selectivity of city boosters. This may have been a golden age for the tobacco lords and the sugar aristocracy, but it was little short of hellish for the slaves who worked and died for them on plantations across the Atlantic. You could call it “Slave Merchant City”, given the 200-year dependency of many residents on slave-grown produce.

Civic and national myopia has been permitted by an astonishing lack of systematic examination of historical connections between Scotland and the Caribbean. It is now becoming clear that the true impact on Scotland of chattel slavery (slaves as legal property) has been vastly underestimated. There is an increasing awareness among historians about Scottish prominence in the plantation economy and the benefits it brought.

We now know that a rapid accumulation of capital from the West Indies flowed into the Scottish economy, particularly to the west of Scotland, though the impact of the profits of slavery on Scottish industrialisation and agriculture remains unclear. However, the veil concealing Scotland’s real economic history is slowly being lifted and groundbreaking new research has enabled historians to follow an identifiable “money trail”.

The Price Of Emancipation, a recent study by Dr Nicholas Draper of University College London (UCL), has radically transformed our understanding of slave ownership in the British Empire at the time of abolition in 1833. Following this much-resisted event, the slave owners were paid the then-astronomical sum of £20 million by the British Government in compensation for the loss of their “property”. This “property”, of course, was the lives of enslaved men and women in the British West Indies.

By close examination of the Parliamentary compensation papers, Draper has identified a significant pattern of Scottish slave ownership within what is effectively a census of British slave ownership in August 1834. Indeed, the results demonstrate that Scots were significantly over-represented in the compensation list. They comprised just 10% of the total British population, yet represented at least 15% of all British absentee slave owners – a percentage likely to grow as we find out more.

By quantifying this discrepancy Draper has deconstructed the myth of minimal Scots involvement in Caribbean slavery in 1834. For those that see our national story in terms of victimhood, this will take some coming to terms with.

The importance of the slave economy to the city’s merchants can be assumed from the strength of the Glasgow West India Association, which was formed in 1807 and became the most powerful pro-slavery group outside of London. Members of the association, a ruthlessly effective lobby group for Caribbean merchants and planters, were comprised from an elite sugar aristocracy who dominated much of the city’s civic life and who remain familiar names in Glasgow’s mercantile and professional history: Dennistoun, Oswald, Hamilton, Campbell, Bogle, Ewing, Donald.

It is, therefore, no surprise that the merchants in Glasgow were one of the largest regional groups to receive compensation. There were over 100 claims made from 1834-1838, with the majority for slaves resident in Jamaica, British Guiana, Trinidad and Grenada. The initial estimate suggests that Glasgow slave-owners claimed a staggering £400,000 – as much as £2 billion in today’s money – in compensation for around 14,000 slaves.

Some individual paths can be traced. James Ewing was Lord Provost in 1832, and the first MP for the city after the Reform Act that year. What was less well-known is that he was also at the pinnacle of the West India trade in Glasgow for over 30 years. He inherited interests in Jamaica from his father, and eventually became absentee proprietor of multiple slave gangs. Already fabulously rich by 1834, Ewing collected around £10,000 in compensation for over 500 slaves across four plantations in Jamaica. But Ewing was a great Glasgow philanthropist bequeathing huge sums to good causes. On his death in 1853, his will shows he left over £70,000 to the city, equivalent to tens of millions in today’s money, including £31,000 to the Merchants House, and a symbolic sum of £10,000 to the Royal Infirmary.

Where did the compensation money come from? The British Government borrowed £15m from a banking syndicate led by Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore. In the context of the recent Government bail-out of RBS, HBOS and other British banks, this lavish handout to the elites in 1834 has some ironic resonances with recent state generosity to an already privileged business sector, also seen as largely unmerited.

The sums involved are certainly on the eye-popping scale of those dispensed post-2008 to the bankers, although an exact reckoning of the contemporary worth of an early 19th-century £20m is problematic. Using a consumer-price escalation scale gives the conservative figure of around £1.5bn, making the Glasgow compensation total of £400,000 worth around £30m in modern terms.

But other equally realistic methods of comparison suggest much higher figures. For example, if viewed in comparison to the size of the British economy, then the figure would be £65bn, making the Glasgow share worth £1.3bn. If taking the total compensation as a percentage of Government expenditure per year, the £20mmight be the equivalent of as much as £100bn, meaning Glasgow received £2bn.

Regardless of which scale is used, £400,000 clearly represents a massive pay day for the Glasgow elites. How deep has this finance seeped into Scottish soil in the last 173 years and where did it go?

Following the flow of slavery-tainted wealth into the British economy is a complex task, although it is a growing area of both academic and popular interest. UCL’s long-term project, Legacies Of British Slave-ownership (www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/) documents not only the recipients of the compensation and where it went, but also its impact on British industry and commerce as well as imperial, cultural, political and physical legacies.

The impact of compensation money, however, is but one aspect of a growing dossier of evidence in Scotland. So far there has been minimal examination of the impact on the Scottish economy and society, and, unlike in England, very little has been written about it. Nonetheless, a new wave of interest means that Scottish historians will soon have answers to some unpalatable questions.

There is little point in historical research whose main purpose is anachronistic bashing of slave-owners and their gains. But neither should it be misused by the interested corporate descendants of Scotland’s slave-profiteers to obscure culpability.

Historians’ only duty is to reveal, contextualise and explain. At least the important questions are now clear: where did this tainted money go and would Scottish economic history have been different if we had never received it?


About the author

Stephen Mullen (33) is the author of the acclaimed book It Wisnae Us! The Truth about Glasgow and Slavery (2009). A graduate of the University of Strathclyde, he was working in his father’s joinery business when he spotted an online advertisement for a researcher to work on a project on the Merchant City for Glasgow Building Preservation Trust, resulting in the influential book, published by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.



Mullen is currently working on a PhD on the Glasgow West India Association in the Department of Economic & Social History at the University of Glasgow.







For more on UCL’s long-term project, Legacies of British Slave-ownership, visit



www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/

After decades, atonement for neglecting graves

Ft. Ward in the news:

http://www.alextimes.com/news/2010/dec/20/after-decades-making-up-for-grave-disre/


After decades, atonement for neglecting graves


MONDAY, DECEMBER 20 2010

By David Sachs

A harsh wind bit through Minister Raymond Jackson’s thin brown trench coat as he hovered over a newly unearthed grave at Fort Ward Park, praying for the unknown body lying beneath the hard winter soil.

“You know all their names, so we look to you, Jesus. We just give them to you and trust them in your hands,” said Jackson, surrounded by a small contingent of neighbors, archaeologists and city historians.

Jackson does not know for whom he prayed. But he or she was once a member of his congregation, Alexandria’s Oakland Baptist Church, and part of a cohesive black community of former slaves who settled the dismantled Fort Ward after the Civil War.

The burial site is one of two 19th-century cemeteries in the area that eroded both literally and in the collective mindset of the city — in a neglectful fashion, according to descendants. At least one gravesite doubled as a city maintenance yard for decades until about a year ago. City trucks came and went, and dumpsters, trashcans and building materials littered the area in plain view of the headstone of Clara Adams, co-founder of Oakland Baptist Church.

“The times were different then and city workers were probably very busy … but these are people’s brothers, sisters mothers and fathers, and the idea that we would just ignore the graves of people while working in the public interest … it just struck me that we’re a better city than that,” said Glenn Eugster, who lives adjacent to the site.

When the city decided to turn the historic fort into an attraction in the 1950s, it realigned the boundaries of the church cemetery and forced families off the desirable property nearby where others are buried, according to written and oral histories.

The purge resulted in several missing headstones and a mistreatment of final resting places, says Fran Terrell, a descendent of a Fort Ward family who was a young girl when the city grabbed the property. Along with Adams’ great-granddaughter Adrienne Washington and other neighbors, Terrell is on a mission to resuscitate the memory of her ancestors and revive respect for their resting place.

“I guess what were doing is to preserve the sanctity of the cemetery and the dignity of those buried there,” Terrell said. “These are our ancestors, and for people to perhaps be buried under equipment — I mean, these people are very special to us.”

In a letter from City Manager E.G. Heatwole to City Attorney Floyd Williams on October 7, 1960, a desire to clear the network of graves is obvious.

“Mr. P.B. Hall, Public Works Director, reports that there are several graves located within the Fort site,” Heatwole wrote. “It is not believed that they have any relationship with activities of the Fort Ward during 1861-1865. Also it is questioned as to whether there are bodies still buried there. If possible, we would like to have the area cleared.”

The letter seems to mark the beginning of the graveyards’ gradual erosion. For about five decades these graves survived almost exclusively in the oral histories of descendents who remain part of a close-knit community, now generations old, living around Woods Place.

“We still feel obligated to the people that were buried here,” Jackson said.

The Office of Historic Alexandria procured a grant to locate the sites through ground-penetrating radar, an archaeological technique unlikely to disturb the graves. Archaeologists have worked for about a year toward righting what descendents and neighbors see as disrespectful neglect.

But Jim Spengler, head of the city’s parks and recreation department, which operates portions of Fort Ward, says the idea that city workers removed gravestones in the 60s and 70s is just a rumor no one has proved. And archaeologist have found nothing but tree roots near Adams’ grave so far.

“That’s been a good rumor, there’s no one on staff who worked during that time frame,” Spengler said. “The city had a maintenance operation in there since Fort Ward was purchased by the city, and the gravestones are fairly distinct. One of the controversies historically … is written histories that said there are more people buried there, and there is another history that says the graves were exhumed and moved.”

Spengler refers to a claim by Wesley Pippenger, author of “Tombstone Inscriptions of Alexandria, Virginia: “… in the 1960's, some graves were moved to accommodate a maintenance facility and the boundaries of [Oakland Baptist] cemetery were extended eastward through trees and underbrush to form the configuration that is visible today.”

The passage refers to the removal of “graves,” not headstones, which could mean bodies were exhumed. Regardless, descendents of the post-Civil War community — and their supporters — are relieved that wrongs are being righted.

“It has been a truly long time but I’m delighted that it is finally getting done, and that our ancestors will rest in peace,” Terrell said.

There was even talk of pressuring current city officials to apologize for the mistakes of their predecessors. But an advisory board of stakeholders decided against it.

“There’s a consensus not to have an apology but for the city to commit to a process that doesn’t let this happen again,” said board member and neighbor Tom Fulton. “But it was neglect.”

Playing a blame game leaves no real winners, Eugster said.

“In some ways all of us are kind of responsible for what happened,” he said. “A lot of times we turn our head and we say, ‘That’s not my issue to get involved’ in and I don’t want to step into something that sensitive.’ But see what happens if you do.”

Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

Long-Forgotten Alexandria Graves Discovered

Very nice Ft. Ward!

wamu.org/news



Long-Forgotten Alexandria Graves Discovered

Michael Pope
December 27, 2010 -

Fort Ward Park in Alexandria is known as the best-preserved part of a system of defenses used to protect Washington from Confederate invasion during the Civil War. But lately it's become known for something else: a series of unmarked African-American graves being discovered throughout the park.
Fran Bromberg, a preservation archeologist, has been working on the project for the past year.
"Well, we're very excited about this project. We think that it really brings back the history of this area that has been forgotten for some time," she says.
That history dates back to the end of the Civil War, when the area became an African-American community for generations until the 1960s, when the city of Alexandria acquired the property and turned it into a park. Over time, many people forgot about the unmarked graves -- until now.
"What we're on the brink of now is being able to expand the interpretation of the site to also include the post-Civil War African-American history of the site because the two stories are really connected in many ways," says Fort Ward Park Director Susan Cumbey.
So far, 11 previously unknown graves have been identified.
The first phase of archeological investigation will conclude in January, but many other potential graves sites throughout the park have yet to be investigated.
Michael Pope also reports for Northern Virginia's Connection Newspapers.

Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

Coming Together for Historic Preservation

Sixth Annual Fairfax History Conference a success.

By Lynne Garvey-Hodge
Wednesday, December 01, 2010

With more than 100 attendees, the Sixth Annual Fairfax County History Conference, Preserving Our Paths in History, Nov. 6 was a tremendous success this year.

Dedicated to the memories of local historians Nan and Ross Netherton, event was sponsored by the Fairfax County History Commission, the Fairfax County Park Authority, the Fairfax Museum & Visitors Center and Preservation Virginia.

Conference Committee members were Rob Orisson (Preservation Virginia), Dr. Elizabeth Crowell, Fairfax County Park Authority; Fairfax County History Commissioners Naomi Zeavin, Esther McCullough, Sallie Lyons, Barbara Naef, Anne Barnes, Carole Herrick, Mary Lipsey and Mike Irwin; and Susan Gray, Fairfax Museum & Visitor Center.

Nine authors and nine exhibitors participated as well and Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sharon Bulova (D-At-large) kicked off the conference reminiscing about the importance of historic preservation, by sharing the story of Ilda, an early 20th century interracial community enclave near the site of the Jewish Community Center on Route 236. The community had been long forgotten and then rediscovered when the Virginia Department of Transportation began to expand the roads at that intersection.

Bulova also presented history awards to outstanding citizens which included Lifetime Achievement Awards to Ed Wenzel, for his 22 year work preserving and protecting Ox Hill Battlefield; John McAnaw, for more than 25 years of dedicated service as a Civil War historian and protector of land in the Kings Park area; and Michael Rierson, for more than 33 years of dedicated service with the Fairfax County Park Authority in preserving and protecting numerous county sites from Sully Plantation to Frying Pan Park.

John Browne was presented with the Beth Mitchell award for his work researching the Ravensworth estate, dating back to 1796, the original home of William Fitzhugh and land that once covered nearly an eighth of the county.

Susan Hellman received the Nan Netherton award for her outstanding research and documentation on the property called “Kenmore.”

Cora Foley was not present, but she received the first Cultural Heritage Engagement Award, Maddy McCoy, also not present, received a Distinguished Service award for her assistance on the “Kenmore” paper as well as for her work creating the African-American Slave index of Fairfax County.

Rick Castelli received the Edith Moore Sprouse award for his extensive research on Fenwick Park.

The Hunter Mill Defense League History Committee received the most prestigious award that the Fairfax County History Commission bestows, the Ross Netherton Award, for their work in creating the DVD “Danger Between the Lines,” a documentary relating the story of the people living amid the turmoil along Hunter Mill Road during the Civil War. Tom Evans, Jim Lewis, Charlie Balch, Bob Eldridge and Steve Hull accepted the award.

The Awards committee included Commissioners Naomi Zeavin, Bob Beach, Jack L. Hiller and Lynne Garvey-Hodge, chairwoman.

“We have never received so many awards nominations as we have this year, and we are delighted with the quality of the work done in preserving the county’s history”, said Hiller.

Thomas Jefferson High School students, under the leadership of history teacher Larry Helm, also submitted historic papers.

The keynote speaker was Elizabeth Kostelny, who spoke on the importance of historic preservation, even during economically difficult times. As executive director of Preservation Virginia, she spoke on “Growing Virginia’s Movement – Historic Preservation in the 21st Century” and encouraged Fairfax County to continue doing good work in preserving the rich historic resources of the county and affirmed the conference as evidence of this good work.

Michael C. Rierson gave a lively, animated talk on his time with the Park Authority, “It Docent Matter — The Beginnings of a Museum & Historic Preservation Program.”

Andrea Loewenwarter from the Fairfax Museum & Visitors Center shared the history of preserving the newly renovated and preserved Blenheim Mansion, “Preserving Historic Blenheim” and the county Archaeology staff was on hand to discuss their work in their offices located at the conference site, the James Lee Community Center.

Local railroad historian Ron Beavers spoke with tremendous energy and exuberance on “Fairfax County Railroads — Pre-Civil War & What is Left Today” and the final presentations of the conference reflected preservation of a number of local sites. Chuck Mauro spoke on the preservation and history of Laura Ratcliffe’s home, “Merrybrook,” David Goetz on John Singleton Mosby’s home in Warrenton, “Brentmoor” and Mary Lipsey spoke on the good work of the Fairfax County Cemetery Preservation Association.

The Annandale High School culinary department under the leadership of Christine Gloninger provided attendees with a delicious continental breakfast and colorful, nutritious lunch. With plenty of prizes provided from the Fairfax Museum & Visitor Center for Trivia Question winners, a sunny day, ample parking, good food and excellent presentations, the crowd left well satisfied and anxious for the Seventh Annual Fairfax County History Conference already in the planning for 2011.


Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

The Rest of the Story

The Rest of the Story
Post-1846 history of Woodlawn gets a closer look.

By Robert Fulton | October 19, 2010

Woodlawn, the 126-acre National Trust for Historic Preservation site located off Richmond Highway near Ft. Belvoir, has a long history. But while the first 40 years of Woodlawn's existence is well-known, details of the estate's history that follow its sale in 1846 have been incomplete.

Until now.

The history of Woodlawn from 1846 on is getting a much-needed closer look.

"In the past, the main focus of the interpretative tour here has been the original owners of the house," said Susan Hellman, Deputy Director of Woodlawn and the Pope-Leighey House. "While people have known some about the later owners, just general information, they haven't known very much about them. I've done more in-depth research on the people who lived here."

The original owners were George Washington's nephew Major Lawrence Lewis and his wife Eleanor "Nelly" Custis Lewis. The property was originally part of Mt. Vernon, which can be seen from Woodlawn. In 1846, the Lewis's son sold the property to two families that were members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. Opposed to slavery, the families established a free labor colony at Woodlawn.

According to Hellman, during the Civil War, Woodlawn and the surrounding area was raided by both the Union and the Confederacy – the North figuring the estate owners were southerners and part of the rebellion, the South knowing the group was made up of Union sympathizers.

"We're finding that it's really a very fascinating story," Hellman said. "We're going deeper into that, into some of these post-Lewis owners because they're really more interesting than you think they are.

The renewed focus on the history of Woodlawn from 1846 on is due to Woodlawn's Director Laurie Ossman. She secured a grant from the National Trust Interpretation and Education Fund to hire researchers to explore the era in question.

Ossman wanted to learn more about Woodlawn beyond the Washington-related family that first lived there.

"It was a logical next question," the director said, before adding, "The focus with George Washington is hard to get past."

Hellman worked as a historian for Fairfax County for five years before taking over as Deputy Director at Woodlawn in April. In May of 2009, Hellman, along with genealogist Maddy McCoy, started work on tackling Woodlawn's history.

Born and raised in the area and now living in Herndon, Hellman combed through a wealth of information, including land records, tax records, census records, family archives, old photographs and local newspapers.

The plan is to offer a lecture on the findings sometime next year, and dedicate a room to the house to the post-1846 era.

"You can't tell the whole story of a site with just focusing on one part," Hellman said. "That's part of what preservation is all about, is the entire history of the structure or the site, not just this one microcosm in time.

"To us it's more interesting to tell the story of the house through time, not just this one static period."

http://mountvernon.patch.com/articles/the-rest-of-the-story-2

Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

I will be speaking at “Woodlawn on the Eve of the Civil War: A Changing Cultural Landscape.” From plantation slavery to an integrated community – 1846-1865

2nd Season
2010-2011 Woodlawn and The Pope-Leighey House Lecture Series

“Woodlawn on the Eve of the Civil War:
A Changing Cultural Landscape.”
From plantation slavery to an integrated community – 1846-1865



Susan Hellman is a professional architectural historian with an M.A. from the University of Virginia School of Architecture and a B.A. from Duke University. After several years working as a Historian for Fairfax County, she is now the Deputy Director of Woodlawn/Pope-Leighey.

Maddy McCoy is a Certified Historic Preservationist and creator of the Fairfax County, Virginia Slavery Inventory Database, a searchable genealogical database of enslaved and free black individuals who lived in Fairfax County, Virginia prior to 1865. She is a Historian for the Fairfax County Park Authority, and part of Gunston Hall's Seeds of Independence Group, researching the post-bellum African American community on Mason Neck.

Thursday, September 30
Historic Woodlawn
7 – 9 p.m.

Admission: $15.00; National Trust members; $10.00

RSVP:
Please respond to Karen Sherwood at 703-780-4000 extension 26321 or karen_sherwood@nthp.org. All major credit cards accepted; checks payable to Woodlawn; mail to address below.

9000 Richmond Highway▪ Alexandria, VA 22309
Mailing Address▪ PO Box 15097▪ Alexandria, VA 22309
www.woodlawn1805.org ▪ www.popeleighey1940.org

I will be speaking about the Fitzhugh slaves at the Oak Hill Open House, Fairfax County, VA

A LOOK BACK AT BRADDOCK PROJECT PROUDLY PRESENTS

OAK HILL OPEN HOUSE SATURDAY OCTOBER 16, 2010

NOON—FIVE PM

(Opening ceremony at 12:30 pm)

4716 Wakefield Chapel Road, Annandale, VA 22003




ABOUT OAK HILL

The Fitzhugh Family and 17th & 18th Century Fairfax County

In 1670, William Fitzhugh (a.k.a. “William the Immigrant”) settled in Westmoreland County Virginia. He became a governor of the College of William and Mary and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. He also established one of the largest land grants in the “new world.” He owned land that stretched from present day Stafford County to Arlington County. The Fairfax County portion of this property, the 21,996-acre Ravensworth Tract, was described in 1694 as “upon the runs of Accotinke, Mussel Creek run and on the south side of the run Four Mile Creek.”

In the 1680s and 1690s, the Fairfax County land known at the time as Ravensworth was marketed to French Huguenots who were suffering under religious persecution. In 1686, William Fitzhugh wrote the following to entice the Huguenots to buy or lease this land: “The land I offer to sell or lease is scituate in this county, lyes within a mile and a half of Potomac River, and of two bold navigable creeks, is principal good land and is proper for Frenchmen, because more naturally inclined to vines, than yours or any about our neighborhood; and will engage to naturalize every soul of them at 3 per head without anymore or other matter of charge or trouble to them, whereby the heirs will be capacitated to inherit the fathers purchase.”

In 1730, tobacco warehouses were established at Little Hunting Creek and Occoquan. These helped to make Ravensworth a very prosperous tobacco plantation. By 1782, Ravensworth was the fourth largest plantation in Fairfax County, and had 203 slaves. In 1783, the north section of the Ravensworth tract was divided among the five [great] grandsons of William Fitzhugh. The south section, south of Braddock Road, remained largely intact until Robert E. Lee’s children inherited it. Richard Fitzhugh, one of the five [great] grandsons, built Oak Hill in 1790. In the same year, Ossian Hall and another house named Dover*were all constructed by the [great] grandsons of William Fitzhugh. Today Oak Hill is the only remaining home built by the Fitzhugh family left in Fairfax County.

Built in 1790 by Richard Fitzhugh, Oak Hill was patterned after the rigid symmetry of the late Georgian style which was inspired by Italian Renaissance architecture. In 1830, an extension was added to the west side of the original house. In the 1930s renowned restoration architect Walter M. Macomber restored and remodeled the house in a Colonial Revival style. Other than the sunroom added to the west side of the house in the 1970s, most of Oak Hill stands today as it did after the 1930s restoration. One feature of significance is the Colonial Revival wood paneling in the dining room which is a replica Federal-period mantel that is detailed with a molded shelf, decorative carved medallions, marble facing and a marble hearth.

The grounds of Oak Hill are also remarkable. From Braeburn Drive up to the front doors of Oak Hill is the original lined drive to the house. This drive is lined on both sides by boxwoods that date back to the 1790 construction of Oak Hill. It is unusual to find so much of the original landscaping including oak trees and boxwoods still intact over 200 years later.

The purchase of a historic easement on Oak Hill offers a unique opportunity to preserve an important piece of the history of our area for generations to come.

Written by Paul Gilbert, Director of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority.

*Recent research has clarified the term Dover as “Dower,” which is the widow’s share of property upon her husband’s death. Fontainebleau is the name of the house that Mordecai Cooke Fitzhugh built and bequeathed to his wife, as part of her dower share, in the 1858 division of their property.

PROGRAM

Speakers—Maddy McCoy, John Browne, Dennis Howard

Before and after emancipation: African Americans in the Oak Hill community. Maddy McCoy, developer and curator of Fairfax County's Slavery Inventory Database, shares insights from her research of the lives of Ravensworth's slaves, former slaves and free blacks. John Browne maps changes that divided up Oak Hill and Ravensworth land through generations of inheritance and sale. Together the speakers present what is known of a now-lost African American community that developed in the late 1800s on former Oak Hill land on Braddock Road.

Springfield resident and author, Dennis Howard recounts his family's passage from slavery in Culpeper, Virginia, to becoming land owners and proprietors of a blacksmith shop on Little River Turnpike, to their contributions in developing our community.


Schedule

12:00—12:30 House open for unguided walk-through first floor only

Ticket distribution for Guided-tours begins

12:30 Opening Ceremony

1:00—2:00 Guided House tours (first floor only)

Entry time into house – 10-15 persons at a time: 1:00; 1:20; 1:40

2:00—3:30 House open for unguided walk-through (first floor only)

3:30—5:00 Guided tours of house (first floor only)

Entry time into house – 10-15 persons at a time: 3:30; 3:50; 4:10;

Speakers

1:00—1:30 Dennis Howard

1:45—2:45 Maddy Mc Coy & John Browne
3:00—3:30 Dennis Howard
3:45—4:45 Maddy Mc Coy & John Browne
Between 1:00 and 4:30 on the lawn—Food, Music and Children's Activities
Fairfax County is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination in all county programs, services and activities and will provide reasonable accommodations upon request. To request special accommodations, call 703-324-2321 or TTY 711. Please allow ten working days in advance of events in order to make the necessary arrangements.

Good job Amy Bertsch!

The wild, wild West End

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 2010
By Derrick Perkins

It’s difficult to look at the West End and see anything other than a heavily trafficked Duke Street, the prefabricated chain stores of the Foxchase shopping center and rows of apartment buildings.
   
The West End was as bustling some 149 years ago, but there’s little evidence left of what it bustled with: farmers, slaves and soldiers linked together by their experience on a farm-turned-Union Army camp.
  
Local researcher Amy Bertsch of the Office of Historic Alexandria has dug through the veneer of the recent past into a world of slaves, farmers and soldiers in blue. She revealed her findings at the Morrison House Tuesday night.
  
Foxchase, formerly Shirley Duke, and before that Volusia, was home to all three during the War Between the States. The faces of slave Julia Hughes and her extended family peer out of the faded photographs Bertsch has found.
  
In 1861, Amelia McCrae and her husband Felix Richards owned and worked the land now known as Foxchase. Though slaveholders and Virginians, the couple remained loyal to Washington — not Richmond — when war broke out.
  
“That was a surprise,” Bertsch said. “They were loyal to the Union, they were people into preserving the Union, but weren’t about to free the people they held.”
  
Their support came with a cost and like other southern families, the Richards’ paid dearly for their loyalties.
  
But during the war the Richards’ offered hospitality to the officers and soldiers stationed around Washington — eventually honored with an army camp named after them.
  
“The provost marshal of Alexandria, in 1862, ordered men to protect the Richards’ home,” Bertsch said. “He assigns sentinels from 143 New York Volunteers and has them posted to make sure the property would be protected … There’s a great deal of loyalty and trust on each side.”
  
As the fighting grew, so did the needs of the army. Union soldiers seized the family’s livestock, hay, and oats. They confiscated the Richards’ slaves as contraband and a regiment of New Hampshire volunteers — one of whom may have taken the existing photographs of the farm during the war — made quick work of the land’s forest, logging the timber for the war effort.
  
Felix grumbled that the “Granite Staters” could knock down trees by merely looking at them, Bertsch said.
  
Of the Richards’ slaves, Hughes and her family are the best known. She reared seven children on Volusia, including twins, Wilson and Levin, and another boy, Jesse. Levin remained in the Alexandria area, while Wilson and Jesse went off to war.
  
By Appomattox, the farm, family and slaves had been wrenched apart by the fighting. Richards had died of illness in October of 1862. The land stripped of all value, McCrae perished in a home for “gentlewomen reduced by misfortune” in 1910. Congress would eventually compensate McCrae after her death.
  
Wilson, the former slave, contracted malaria during his enlistment and never recovered, dying in 1883. Jesse died during Maj. Gen. George McClellan’s ill-fated campaign on the Virginia Peninsula in 1862.
  
The officer who writes the Richards’ of Jesse’s death, Mark Wilks Collet, dies at the Battle of Salem Church in 1863.
  
And when the City of Alexandria annexes the former farm in the early 1950s, the streets winding the Richards’ land were renamed in memory of Confederate heroes. 

ShareThis