USA > Maryland > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 13
USA > Virginia > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15
The scene changes. Strains of music are floating on the air, and ladies fair, and gay gallants bow gracefully to each other and trip gaily through the mazes of the minuet. Meanwhile, as the music and the dance go on, my Lord Thomas sits complacently in his easy armchair, attired in velvet coat, and ruff, doublet and silken hose and buckles. His dancing days are over, for he has passed his threescore milestone, and his hair is well silvered o'er, but he watches intently the gliding figures over the oaken floor, and mayhap, his thoughts are far away in halls of Yorkshire or Kent, or old London, when in his heyday of life he, too, had tripped so gaily with the giddy girl who had so cruelly won his heart and then played him false for another. The old baron is genial and kindly to all, and everybody is fond of him and graciously defers to his lineage and experience. He chats pleasantly with the guests, delights in their merriment, and anon, in drowsy mood, goes nodding, and then passes away to the land of dreams. We linger still, and the scene again changes. The blessed Christmas tide comes round. The busy note of preparation is rife in parlor and kitchen, the hickory yule logs are piled and lighted, and their cheery and warming flames go trooping up the great stone chim- neys into the midwinter night. The holly branches and mistletoe boughs are hung on the walls. Genial and convivial friends, young and old, come in from anear and afar, and there is full measure of kindly feeling and good cheer and a jocund time for all. The bountiful board smokes as in old England's manorial homesteads, with savory venison, wild turkey, and the wild boar's head from the surrounding forests. As we wait still longer in the shadows of the old mansion we may still give wider range to fancy, and call up to view scenes of mirth and rejoicing, as when joyous bridal bells were chiming; or scenes of sorrow and mourning, as when funeral bells were tolling. And, waiting still longer with the coming and going of the years, we may note the passing out over the threshold of the old mansion its master and mistress, to take that long voyage across the ocean which was to separate them forever from their Virginia home. And yet a little longer we will wait, till the household heirlooms and treasures are sold under the hammer of the auctioneer and are scattered widely over the lands, and finally, till that baleful day comes, when those storied walls go down in fire and crumble to dust, and there is an end to all the times of glad meetings and good cheer-of all the times of song and music and the dance, and of all the kindly greetings and farewells at the ancient homestead of Belvoir.
The years Upon the strong man, and the haughty form
Have gone, and with them many a glorious throng Of happy dreams. Their mark is on each brow, Their shadows in each heart In their swift course They waved their sceptres o'er the beautiful, And they are not. They laid their pallid hands
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim-
They trod the hall of revelry, where throng'd
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song And reckless shout resounded.
These are only the picturings of fancy, and to many they may seem idle and vague, even foolish; but they are picturings which some of us love to linger over, and are loth to let pass from our visions, for they touch responsive chords of our hearts and set them to rhythm and accord with all that belongs to those remote but cherished times; and as the vistas lengthen and grow dimmer we shall but cling to them and love them all the more.
Scattered over the tide-water region of Virginia, are hundreds of such heaps of bricks and stones, as those to be seen on the site of the old house of Belvoir we have been de-
102
SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
scribing: and they arrest the attention of the thoughtful passer and tell to him mute but pathetic and impressive stories of the past, of rural mansions, of the great Virginia estates where culture, refinement, and a generous hospitality abounded. Only a few of the typical old buildings remain for us, and these are passing rapidly from view, and the time is not far distant when the last of these landmarks of the vice-regal and revo- lutionary times will be no more.
GREENWAY COURT.
WHERE LORD THOMAS FAIRFAX LIVED.
Not far from the little village of Milwood, in the Shenandoah Valley, there stood a few years ago an ancient mansion of peculiar interest. It was plainly a relic of the re- mote past-quaint in style, and suggestive to the beholder of strange circumstances and histories. Tall locusts of a century's growth surrounded it, and waved their spreading branches over its steep roof and windows.
This ancient mansion was once the home of an English nobleman, who only chanced to live in Virginia, and did not directly influence to any con- siderable measure the events of the period in which he was an actor. And what, it may be asked, had Thomas, Lord Fair- fax, Baron of Cameron, the sixth of the name, of Greenway Court, in the Shenandoah Val- ley, to do with the history of this era? What did he per- form, and why is a place de- manded for him in our annals? The answer is not difficult. With this notable person who has passed to his long rest, and lies nearly forgotten in the old church at Winchester is con- nected a name which will never be forgotten. His was the high mission to shape in no small measure the immense strength of George Washington. His hand pointed attention to the rising planet of this great life, 1901 and opened its career toward the zenith -- the planet which shines now, the polar star of our liber- ties, set in the stormy skies of the Revolution. The brilliance of THOMAS SIXTH LORD FAIRFAX. that star no man can now in- From a painting in the Masonic Lodge Room, Alexandria. crease nor obscure, as no cloud can dim it, yet, once it was un- known, and needed the assistance, which Lord Fairfax afforded.
1
Any account of the youth of Washington must involve no small reference to the old fox-hunting Baron who took an especial fancy for him when he was a boy of sixteen, and greatly aided in developing his capabilities and character. Fairfax not only thus shaped by his counsels the unfolding mind of the young man, but placed the future leader of the American Revolution in that course of training which hardened his mus- cles, toughened his manhood, taught him self-reliance, and gave him that military re-
103
OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
pute in the public eye, which secured for him at a comparatively early age the appoint- ment of commander-in-chief of the Continental armies over all competitors. First and last, Fairfax was the fast and continuing friend of Washington, and not even the strug- gle for independence in which they espoused opposite sides, operated to weaken this regard. In imagination let us look at this old house in which Lord Thomas passed about thirty years of his bachelor life. It stands before us on a green knoll-solitary, almost, in the great wilderness, and all its surroundings impress us with ideas of pioneer life and habits. It is a long, low building, constructed of the limestone of the region.
..
GREENWAY COURT.
The home of Thomas, Lord Fairfax, in the Shenandoah Valley.
A row of dormer windows stands prominently out from its steep over-hanging roof, and massive chimneys of stone appear outside of its gables which are studded with coops around which swarm swallows and martins. From the ridge of the roof rise two belfries or lookouts, constructed probably by the original owner to give the alarm in case of an invasion by the savages. Not many paces from the old mansion was a small log house in which the eccentric proprietor slept, surrounded by his dogs, of which he was passionately fond; the large edifice having been assigned to his steward. A small
104
SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
cabin of stone near the north end of the house was his office; and in this he trans- acted all the business of his vast possessions, giving quit-rents, signing deeds, and holding audiences to adjust claims and boundary lines. Scattered over the knoll were the quarters for his many servants. And here in the midst of dogs and horses, back- woodsmen, Indians, half-breeds, and squatters, who feasted daily at his plentiful board, the fine gentleman of Pall Mall, the friend of Joseph Addison, passed more than a quarter of a century. He lived in this frontier locality the life of a recluse. He had brought with him an ample library of books, and these were welcome companionship for him in his solitary hours. Ten thousand acres of land around his unpretentious lodge he had alotted for a manorial estate, with the design at some time of erecting upon it a castle for a residence. This design he never executed.
At the age of twenty-five, Lord Fairfax was one of the gayest of the young men of London society. He. went the rounds of dissipation with the fondest enjoyment, and was considered one of the finest beaux of his day. He was well received by all classes. Young noblemen, dissipating rapidly their patrimonial substance, found in him a con- genial companion in their intrigues and revels. . Countesses permitted him to kiss their jewelled hands and when he made his bow in their drawing-rooms, received him with their most patronizing smiles. But our young lord after a time found himself arrested in his gay round of pleasures in the haunts of silk stockings and hooped petticoats. He had revolved like a gaily-colored moth about many beautiful luminaries without singeing his wings, but his hour. of fate came. . One of the beauties of the time trans- fixed him. He circled in closer and closer gyrations. His pinions were caught in the blaze, and he was a hopeless captive. My Lord Fairfax no longer engaged in revels or the rounds of dissipation, but like a sensible lover accepted the new conditions, and sought only to make everything ready for a life of real happiness in the nuptials of two loving and confiding hearts. He turned resolutely from the frivolous past and looked only to the promising future, which he saw as if unfolding something higher and more substantial for his achievement and enjoyment. Then the real sweetness and depth of his truer nature revealed themselves from beneath the wrappings of dissipation and vice. He gave up everything which had pleased him for this woman and all that he now asked was permission to take his affianced away from the dangerous atmosphere of the court, and to live with her peacefully as a good nobleman of the provinces. He loved her passionately, and wished to discard all who threatened to interfere with the exclusive enjoyment of her society. All his resources were taxed to supply the most splendid marriage gifts; and absorbed in this delightful dream of love, his happiness was raised to the' empyrean. But he was destined to have a sudden awakening from his dream, a terrible, almost fatal fall from his cloudland. He had expended the wealth of his deep and earnest nature on a coquette-his goddess was a woman simply-and a very shallow one. She threw Fairfax carelessly overboard, and married a nobleman who won her by the superior attractions of a ducal coronet. Thus struck doubly in his pride and his love, Fairfax looked around him in despair for some retreat to which he might fly and forget in a measure his sorrows. London was hateful to him, the country no less distasteful. He could not again plunge into the mad whirl of the one, nor rust away in the dull routine of the other. His griefs demanded action to dissipate them-adventure, new scenes-another land was needed. This process of reflection turned the young man's thoughts to the lands in far away Virginia which he held in right of his mother, the daughter of Lord Culpeper, to whom they had originally been granted; and finally he bade adieu to England and came over the seas. Such were the events in the early life of this gentleman which brought him to Virginia.
The house of Belvoir to which Lord Fairfax came was the residence, as has already been stated, of William Fairfax his cousin, to whom he had intrusted the manage- ment of his Virginia lands. Lawrence Washington, the eldest brother of George had married a daughter of William; and now commences the connection of the already aged proprietor and the boy of sixteen who was to lead the armies of the Revolution. Washington was a frequent inmate of the Belvoir home, and the boy was the chosen companion of the old Lord in his hunting expeditions. In the reckless sports of the
+
105
OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
field the proprietor seemed to find the chief solace for his love-lorn griefs. Time slow- ly dissipated his despairing recollections, however, and now, as he approached the middle of that century, the dawn of which had witnessed so much of his misery, the softer traits of his character returned, and he was to those for whom he felt regard a most delightful and instructive companion. Almost every trace of personal attraction, though, had left him. Upwards of six feet in stature, gaunt, raw-boned, near-sighted, with light grey eyes, and a sharp aquiline nose, he was scarcely recognizable as the ele-
W
1
THE END OF GREENWAY COURT.
gant young nobleman of the days of Queen Anne. But time and reflection had mel- lowed his mind, and when he pleased, the old gentleman could enchain his hearers with brilliant conversation, of which his early training and experience had given him very great command. He had seen all the great characters of the period of his youth, had watched the unfolding of events and studied their causes. All the social history, the scandalous chronicles, the private details of celebrated personages had been famil-
106
SOME OLD IHISTORIC LANDMARKS
iar to him, and his conversation thus presented a glowing picture of the past. Some- thing of cynical wit still clung to him, and the fireside of Belvoir was the scene of much satiric comment between the old nobleman and his cousin William. But Fair- fax preserved great fondness for youth, and took especial pleasure in the society of our George of Mount Vernon. He not only took him as a companion in his hunts, but liked to have the boy with him when he walked out; and it may be easily understood that the talks of the exile had a deep effect upon young Washington.
The import of Lord Fairfax's connection with the future commander-in-chief lies chiefly in the commission which he intrusted to Geo. Wm. Fairfax, his cousin, and Washington, the boy of seventeen, that of surveying and laying out his vast possessions in the Shenandoah Valley. Providence here as everywhere seemed to have directed the movements of man to work out His own special ends. This employment as sur- veyor on the wilderness frontiers was the turning-point in the young man's life, and the results of the expedition of three years in its influences on his habits and character, the information and self-reliance it gave him, and the hardships it taught him to endure are now the property of history.
*It is not a part of our design to follow the young surveyor in his expedition which led him from Greenway Court to the headwaters of the Potomac where Cumberland now stands, and thence into the wilderness of the "Great South Branch," a country as wholly unknown as it was fertile and magnificent. He returned to Mount Vernon a new being, and the broad foundation of his character was laid.
The first act of his eventful life had been played-the early lessons of training and endurance thoroughly learned-the ground work of his subsequent exertions fixed; and the prudence, courage, coolness, and determination which he displayed on this arena, made him general-in-chief when the crisis came, of the forces of the Revolutionary struggle-Lord Fairfax had given him the impetus. From him he had received the direction of his genius, and to the attentive student of these early events the conviction becomes more and more absolute that Lord Fairfax was the great "influence" of his life. And the interest attaching to the career of this noble patron consists chiefly in his con- nection with the life of the rising hero. Having formed as we have seen in no small measure the character of the boy of seventeen, he lived to re- ceive the tidings that this boy had overthrown forever the dominion of Great Britain in America on the field of Yorktown. So had Providence de- creed; and the gray haired baron doubtless felt that he was only the humble servant in that all powerful Hand.
After Yorktown-after the supreme defeat of the proud English general by the lad whom he had trained, it was, as he said, "time for him to die."
His death took place in 1781, at the age of ninety-two, and his body lies buried in the old Episcopal churchyard at Winchester, Va. His barony and its prerogatives according to English law descended in the absence of a son to his eldest brother Robert, who thus became seventh Lord Fairfax. The latter died in Leed's Castle, England, 1791, without a son. The baronial title then fell to Rev. Bryan Fairfax, son of William Fairfax then dead, and brother-in-law of Law. rence Washington.
Ilis main and last residence in Virginia was
*See "Story of Young Surveyors" by author.
RIGHT HON. REV. BRYAN, EIGHTH LORD FAIRFAX. Courtesy of Miss F. M. Burke.
107
OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
Mount Eagle on a high eminence ncar Great Hunting Creck, Fairfax county. But he had another homestead known as "Towlston Hall," a few miles above Alexandria, destroyed by fire just before the Revolution. He became the Eighth Lord in descent, and died at Mount Eagle in 1802. He was probably buricd in Ivy Hill Cemetery near Alexandria. On a tablet in this burial place erected by his granddaughter is the fol- lowing inscription:
IN MEMORIAM. RIGHT HON. REV. BRYAN, LORD FAIRFAX, BARON OF CAMERON AND RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, FAIRFAX PARISH. DIED AT MOUNT EAGLE, AUG. 7, 1802, AGED 78. THE LORD FORSAKETH NOT THE SAINTS. THEY ARE PRESERVED FOREVER.
The last living heir to the title of Lord, in line of descent is Mr. Albert Fairfax of New York City. He has become by the recent death of his father, John Contce Fairfax of Maryland, the twelfth Baron.
The great landed estates of Lord Thomas Fairfax with their entails were in effect confiscated by the success of the American Revolution; and the legislature of Virginia in 1785 passed an act in relation to the Northern Neck, declaring that the landholders within said domain "should be forever after exhonerated and discharged from all com- positions and quit rents for the same." This was the end of the millions of acres of the royal Culpeper patent.
A daughter of Bryan Fairfax, "Sally," a favorite young friend of Washington, died in early womanhood. A son, Thomas, lived beyond the age of eighty and died at Vaucluse near Seminary Hill, Va., in 1846, a zealous convert to the doctrines of Swedenborg. He was a man of broad and liberal views of human duties. He lib- erated all the slaves belonging to his patrimonial estate and was the originator of the African colonization society.
DESCENT OF THE FAIRFAX TITLE.
The Fairfaxes have been prominent personages during a thousand years of English and American history. Coming down through that hist:ry we find mention of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton near Otley on the banks of the river wharfe in Yorkshire. His eldest son Thomas was Knighted for distinguished service before the city of Rouen in 1594 and in 1625 was created by Charles I, Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, in the Scottish peerage. His son Ferdinando became second Lord Fairfax and was commander-in-chief of the parliamentary forces at the battle of Marston Moor in 1644. His son Thomas became third Lord Fairfax and was generalissimo of the armies of parliament under Oliver Cromwell in the war against the forces of Charles I. His name was on the list of judges to try the King, but he was not present at the trial. He died in 1671 and was succeeded in the title by his cousin Henry, fourth Lord Fairfax, of the cavalier branch of the family. This nobleman's eldest son Thomas, fifth Baron Fairfax, was married to Catherine, daughter of Lord Culpeper, and his son Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax, became proprietor of the "Northern Neek" in Virginia. He came to Virginia just previous to 1740 and lived the rest of his life, chiefly at Greenway Court in the Shenandoah Valley. His cousin Robert in England became seventh Lord, Bryan Fairfax son of William of Belvoir became eighth Lord. His son Thomas who died at an advanced age in 1846, succeeded to the title as ninth Lord. He was succeeded by his grandson Charles Snowden Fairfax, as tenth Lord. The title after his death fell to his brother, John Contee Fairfax as eleventh Lord. The last of the line is his son Albert Kirby Fairfax, of New York City as twelfth Lord.
WASHINGTON'S LAST VISIT TO HIS MOTHER. HIS MIDNIGHT RIDE.
He speeds at night when the world is still, Over lonely plain and meadow and hill;
A beacon bright as the guiding Star
The Eastern Magi sought afar-
His way is rugged and lonely and dim;
But a friendly beacon is shining for him-
Hle sees the light of a mother's eyes Ever before his pathway rise!
Early on an April day of 1789 a wearied messenger arrived in haste at the gates of Mount Vernon. Hc had ridden from the city of New York, a distance of over two hundred and fifty miles, partly in lumbering stage coaches and partly on horseback over a highway abounding in ferrics and fording places and much of it very rugged and difficult of passage.
The messenger was the vencrable Charles Thompson, secretary of the Continental Congress, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He had been commissioned by the new Congress under the Federal constitution to announce to Gen-
108
SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
eral Washington in his retirement, that he had been unanimously chosen to be the chief magistrate of the United States.
The presence of the distinguished chief was urgently desired at the seat of govern- ment, and he immediately set himself about the arrangement of his domestic affairs preparatory to obeying the important summons. His new duties as president would make necessary a long absence from his home, in the distant metropolis, and he must hastily make a tour of inspection over his large estate to view the condition of his vari- ous plantations, note their prospects for crops and give all needed directions to his overlookers, for he was as careful and methodical in the management of his acres as he had been in the campaigns of the Revolution.
But he could not start on the long journey he had to make, until he had performed a sacred and very kindly duty.
Always filial in his disposition and dutiful in his deep emotions of gratitude to the American people for their spontaneous expression of their confidence in his ability to again serve them, he did not forget his mother who had ever been to him the kind and affectionate counsellor and abiding friend, and who had proved so influential in shaping and directing his young inclinations after having been so early bereft of the care and parental guidance of his father. She was living at her rural home near Fredericksburg, fifty miles distant. And although it had been but a short time since he had looked upon her furrowed face and received her blessings, he felt that under the circumstances he must now again behold her. She was aged and infirm, and it might be the last oppor- tunity for him to see her among the living. So, when the shadow of evening had far lengthened and disappeared athwart the fields, he mounted his fleetest horse, and ac- companied by his faithful servant started on his mission in obedience to the promptings of that inward monitor which from boyhood he seemed always to have considered decisive.
Passing the borders of his own pleasant domain he reached the wooded heights of Accotink as the last faint rays of the sunset were fading beyond the western hills. It was no broad highway that he had taken, with smooth, level turnpiked surface, albeit, it was the main stage road, the old "King's Highway" from Williamsburg, the provin- cial capital, up through the Northern Neck to the Shenandoah, and the road over which the early planters once rolled their tobacco wains, and drove their liveried coaches, or clattered fleetly with their thoroughbreds, though it was little better than a bridle path, rough and vexatious to the wayfarer. But our rider was no stranger to its gullied ways and winding courses, since that time fifty odd years before, when a small boy four or five years of age with his father Augustine and his mother Mary, and his little sister Betty and his younger brother Samuel, he was brought up in the family carriage from the old homestead in Westmoreland to the new home at Epsewasson, two miles below where now stands the mansion of Mount Vernon, a home not then established, though it had been projected by Augustine the father. Over the same road, thirty years be- fore, when a young man of twenty-eight, he had ridden in his coach and four from Wil- liamsburg with his bride, the widow Martha Custis to her new home at Mount Vernon.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.