USA > Virginia > Fairfax County > Fairfax County > Colchester Colonial Port on the Potomac > Part 11
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Thompson's sketch of the scene shows the old Mason ferry house on Prince William shore, as well as the bridge.
The Coming of the Railroad
In 1871, construction began on a rail link between Alexandria and Fredericksburg, then the only gap in the line from New York to Tallahassee, Florida. Attempts had been made for many years to build a railroad in this part of Virginia. In 1832, a route was proposed from Fredericksburg northward to the steamboat landing on Potomac Creek. A distance of eight miles was surveyed and subscription books opened by the Fredericksburg & Potomac Creek Railroad Company. It was estimated that a single track could be built for $50,000. The range of 238 feet in elevation on the line, reported the engineer in charge, "will, in all probability, preclude the employment of locomotive engines, but will afford no obstacle to horse power, by which the distance can be accomplished in one hour."7 Plans were being made at the same time for a line from Baltimore to Washington; from there a steamboat would transport travelers to Potomac Creek. Travel by stagecoach between Alexandria and Fredericksburg at that time required two days if the journey were made in the winter.8
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Proposals were modified "to make for the present merely a good road, and to send to England for a locomotive engine to run on it."9 In 1834, the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad was chartered. Residents of the town of Occoquan recommended at that time that the proposed railway should run through their town. 10 In three years time track was laid from Richmond to Fredericksburg; a later extension went north to Potomac Creek.
The rails advanced no farther until after the Civil War, although in 1864 the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway Company (incorporated in 1851) attempted to take over the charter. The newcomers raised $40,000 by selling $2.00 stock shares and let a contract to Bodfish, Mills & Company. This contractor went bankrupt and no further action was taken until 1870.11
At that time the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac, and the Baltimore & Potomac all tried to secure the charter. Enabling legislation was passed by Congress so that the Baltimore & Potomac might extend a line from Washington to Richmond, but this company finally chose an alternate route through Southern Maryland to Popes Creek on the Potomac River (in Charles County, Maryland). They then hoped to construct a line across the river in King George County, Virginia, which would extend to Richmond. 12
In the ensuing power struggle the Alexandria & Fredericksburg Railway, controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad, was the victor. A survey line was run in July and in December 1870, Charles McFadden of Philadelphia was given a contract to build the section from Chappawamsic in Prince William County, Virginia, to a point in Fairfax County one and one-half miles beyond Colchester. "Mr. McFadden," reported the Alexandria Gazette, "has already purchased lumber in this city and erected substantial shanties near Colchester for the accommodation of the large forces of laborers he intends to put to work at once." By the end of the month he had broken ground at Colchester and had a force of 50 men making cuts across Lewis Weston's farm. 13
On January 19, 1871, the newspaper said that "a large force of laborers at work, and active operations are in progress on about fifteen miles of line, running both ways from Colchester. Five miles are reported to be ready for ties now." Across the Potomac, the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Company was grading their Charles County route, while from Fredericksburg the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac was working on the line north to Quantico. 14
Inclement weather closed navigation on the river and slowed preparations for grading. The Chief Engineer of the Alexandria & Fredericksburg, J. V. Crawford, may have been optimistic in saying that the work would be complete by July. Meanwhile the enforced idleness of the workmen, cooped up in their shanties, led to several fights. It may have been the memory of these outbreaks that gave the town of Colchester its reputation as a place "of unpleasant notoriety."15
In March, H. K. Bradshaw of Alexandria was awarded the contract for the bridge over the Occoquan River. This was to be a trestle structure and may have been constructed in the same manner as the Long Bridge at Washington. At that spot bunches of piles were driven two feet below water level and 12x12's set on the piles in a crisscross pattern just below the low water mark. Much of the timber for the trestle came from the lumber mill at Accotink. 16 A granite quarry near Fredericksburg and the freestone quarry on Aquia
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Creek provided stone for footings. 17
Two stone footings from this first railroad bridge are still in place. The one now visible is of a red color and may be Seneca sandstone; the other, on the shore, has a 12 foot jacket of concrete around it. This encapsulation was done about 1959, at the time when a third pier was replaced by a steel footing. 18
Grading for the railroad was not complete until the middle of July 1871. The bridges were said to be "in rapid process of construction" at that time and the line ready for ties and rails. 19 Despite the optimism of the chief engineer, it was not until the spring of 1872 that the bridge over the Occoquan was completed. "The first of several fine depot buildings to be established on the line of the Alexandria & Fredericksburg Railroad has been erected, together with a commodious water tank, capable of holding 10,000 gallons, ... and will be known as Long Branch Station; the buildings are first class in every respect. The bridge over the Occoquan has nearly been completed," the Gazette report on April 1st. On the 13th a train left Alexandria with a group of officials for a trial run across the new structure. One of the guests sent in an account of the trip:
On the morning of the 13th instant a party of gentlemen left Alexandria upon a construction train for the purpose of making the first trial trip across the high bridge and trestle at Occoquan and thereby testing the solidity of the work ... After a rapid and pleasant run of seventeen miles they reached the rubicon, and locomotive No. F, thickly crowded with railroad men, steamed slowly across, while the whistle snorted exultingly "Onward to Richmond." Its arrival upon the southern bank was enthusiastically greeted by a goodly gathering of the citizens of Prince William County, and a number of fair ladies attested their faith in the safeness of the structure by accompanying the bold pioneers on their return. After crossing and recrossing several times at a slow rate of speed, the engineer pulled the throttle wide open ... The bridge is nearly a quarter of a mile in length and 75 feet above the water in Occoquan creek, so as to allow of the easy passage of all shipping underneath, and thus obviate the necessity of having a drawbridge. The engineers tested the deflection under load and pronounced it to be entirely satisfactory. 20
That summer must have been a busy one for such excursions. A gentleman who signed himself "Viator" wrote"
A few days ago, in company with one of the City Fathers, I took a jaunt by the new railroad, to what was once the venerable port of Colchester ... The new railroad bridge at Colchester ... is a beautiful and substantial structure, resting on red sand stone piers 72 feet above the surface of the water. Colchester is beautifully situated, having a fine view of the Potomac several miles below. Some century, or more ago, considerable business in tobacco, &c., was done there ... While at Colchester we saw the Little Thunder, with a wheel behind her, rushing up under the high bridge ...
It was a great mistake in the people of old to build on the small streams, as at Dumfries, Colchester, Bladensburg, &c; but ships were much smaller in those days, and the folks of old were not to blame for not being prophets. 21
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Dredging Operations on the Occoquan
If the early inhabitants had been prophets, a great amount of money would have been saved. A survey made in 1872 by the U. S. Corps of Engineer estimated the cost of a five foot channel to be $18,095 if dredged to a width of 100 feet. The existing channel had depths ranging from five to 25 feet, but it was blocked by two mudflats below the railroad bridge. The mean rise and fall of the tide was about three feet.
A cut through the upper mudflat, half a mile below the bridge, was made in 1871. Residents of Occoquan had spent $600 on this project; because it was badly located and too narrow, the result was unsatisfactory. 22
Like other early port towns built near the head of navigation, Occoquan and Colchester were victims of the sedimentation caused by soil erosion. This was the case over the entire shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay; the average depth of the water near its head and reduced by 2} feet between 1846 and 1938. This figure does not, of course, take into account the vast amount of sediment deposited before that time. The town of Joppa, Maryland, once a colonial port, was two miles from navigable water in 1945.23 Port Tobacco, Maryland, was in 1882 4,800 feet beyond the head of navigation; of this distance 1,800 feet had filled in since 1862. At the beginning of the nineteenth century vessels of a six foot draft could still get up to the town itself, although the creek had been deeper during the colonial period. 24
On the Virginia side of the Potomac on Quantico Creek, siltation had filled in a 60 foot wide, 4-5 foot deep canal built shortly after 1796. By 1905, this was a ditch only one foot deep and of half its original width. Neabsco Creek was once navigable nearly to the point where it is crossed by U. S. Route 1.25 During the 1870's Neabsco, Aquia, Accotink and Occoquan Creeks were dredged but improvement was temporary. In Occoquan alone over $95,000 was appropriated by the Corps of Engineers between 1873 and 1910.26 The enormous expense made it impossible to justify the maintenance of channels into all of the numerous former ports around the Chesapeake Bay. Only Baltimore has remained a major port: dredging there in the 1815-1831 period cost half a million dollars. 27
Operations at Occoquan involved cutting a 50 foot channel, five feet deep, through the Lower Mud Bar in 1873-1874, making a cut ten feet wider through the Upper Mud Bar the following year, and in 1875-1876 dredging an 80 foot wide channel from the railroad bridge up to the town of Occoquan. By the time this was done, the channel at the mouth of the river had begun to fill in and had to be dredged again. In 1878-1879, the bar at the mouth off Sandy Point was again cut through, while in 1880 part of a pile dike was built opposite the wharf at the town of Occoquan. A riprap was built later and logs and snags removed. 28
The Effect on the Local Economy
When William Popp made his first engineering report in 1872 he noted that trade in the river was carried on by two 50-ton shallow draught sternwheelers. Heavy timber, railroad ties and granite from the quarry was carried, as well as barrels and flour. All products had to be trans-shipped at Alexandria due to the shallow channel of the
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Occoquan. The trade totaled about $40,000 yearly and included some 16,000 bushels of wheat and 6,000 bushels of corn. "Colchester," he observed, "has also a con- siderable trade with Alexandria and Washington, especially in firewood."
Attached to his report was a letter from Occoquan residents describing their town of 300 population and giving their annual shipments:
Flour
3500 barrels
Mill offal
6000 bushels
Cord Wood
15,000-20,000 cords
Flour barrels
30,000-40,000
Fish barrels
2,000-3,000
Cedar posts
10,000-30,000
Hogshead poles
150,000-200,000
Barrel Hoops
25,000-50,000
Sumac
20,000-25,000 pounds29
This list may be compared with another set of statistics covering trade between 1891 and 1896 (given in tonnage):
Articles
1891
1892
1894
1895
1.896
Flour & grain
60
550
900
1400
1200
Coal
100
100
100
100
100
Fertilizers
200
Lumber
600
890
320
200
300
Piles
1000
100
2150
Railroad ties
3600
3000
3000
2500
7000
Sand
3500
3600
2400
750
7120
Miscellaneous
345
655
580
325
410
8,205
56,705
8,900
10,475
41,070
In 1896, the reporting officer also summarized the arrivals and departures of vessels in the Occoquan River. Of barges and flatboats there were 808, 96 sailboats and 614 vessels with less than a ten foot draft. "The work done has lessened the cost of shipping, since vessels can now load more heavily at the wharves, formerly part of the cargo had to be taken out to them in lighter draft boats," concluded the report. 30
The Close of the Century
The Colchester area continued its rural character after the Civil War, with the former town lands remaining in the hands of three farmers as they had since the 1850's. Both James Potter and Lewis Weston died about 1865. The Weston heirs retained title
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48,000
5000
23,400
Wood
to seven lots, John Weston acquiring the rights of his two sisters and two brothers. 31 Potter left two sons and one daughter. His town lots, nine in number, had been forfeit in 1866 for nonpayment of taxes but were regained by his sons in 1869.32 Like John Weston, Joseph Potter continued to pay taxes through 1890. After this time the tax records no longer listed land in Colchester as town lots. The third bloc, consisting of the ten lots acquired by 1854 by John Hughes, 33 was inherited by his son George Thomas Hughes. The guardian (Potter Trice) of young Hughes sold three of the lots in 1872 and Hughes himself sold three more in 1881. Four lots were kept through 1890. 34 Of the remainder of the town lots, taxes were still being paid on only four others, all unimproved. 35
It was still possible in 1881 to find throngs of swans downstream where the Occo- quan entered the Potomac.
The waters about the mouth of the Occoquan are the favorite feeding haunts of the swan. This noble bird also frequents the river for a distance of forty miles below. In early days the swan resorted hither in flocks of several hundred, and might be seen floating gracefully on the waters, their white plumage at a distance resembling the driven snow, and in the evenings their sonorous notes could be heard for several miles. Their size and immense ... the swan remains in the river during the entire winter . 36
Another sight pointed out to excursion parties aboard the steamboat Arlington was the old colonial town. In 1874, the Alexandria Library Company advertised such a trip to raise funds:
Up to a short time ago there was no way of getting to Occoquan except by private conveyance, which was why it was not more frequented by excursion parties ... in going, you pass by the old town of Colchester, one of the first settled towns of Virginia, the remains of which can still be seen, and pass under the magnificent bridge of the Fredericksburg Railroad. 37
During the summer there were tournaments held at Woodbridge with local knights tilting the ir lances and queens of love and beauty, or performances on the tightrope. On board ship "Good music will be in attendance. "38
Occasionally an even more exciting event might take place, such as the launching of the sternwheeler built at Occoquan in 1873 or the sale of the sidewheeler Arlington at that place in 1879. This ship of the Occoquan Line was 109 feet long, 25 feet wide, and drew 2} to four feet of water. It could thus use the dredged channel up to the town and could transport 50 tons of freight. More dramatic, perhaps, would be the Voodoo doctress practicing near Pohick Church or, in 1879, the arrival of Henry Tudor. That gentleman was traveling from New York. He spent the night in Colchester during his journey on horseback to Patagonia at the far tip of South America. 39
Periodically the railroad bridge needed repair. One of the piers was fixed in 1873 by the Keystone Bridge Company. The job had to be done hastily. "As the bridge is 75 feet high, pedestrians will not now attempt to cross it."40 Floodwaters in 1877,
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/
1881 and 1889 so damaged the wooden trestle that plans were made in 1892 to replace it with an iron structure, "which, when completed, they say, will be a beautiful piece of work. "41 The Alexandria & Fredericksburg had in 1890 been consolidated with the Alexandria & Washington to form a new company known as the Washington-Southern Railroad. Under their auspices the iron bridge was built. A plan was also proposed in 1898 to run a branch line of track from Woodbridge to the town of Occoquan. Officials of the Pennsylvania Railroad visited there in August and ordered a survey made but nothing further was done. 42
In 1894, Professor Samuel Langley of the Smithsonian Institution placed his experimental aircraft on a railroad car and transported it to Occoquan Bay. There it was put on a scow for testing over the water. Langley and Dr. Barnoss, his assistant, "adjusted the mechanism to its supporting frame ... like a monstrous swan it jumped into the air." The aluminum craft was ten feet in length and shaped like a porpoise. 43 Three years later the first joint annual meeting of the Prince William Education Association and the historical societies of Prince William, Fairfax County and Alexandria was held in Occoquan. The picnic lunch was served at the site of the iron furnace before the group boarded the steamer Alton for the trip downstream to Colchester.
A HISTORIC PICNIC
There gathered Saturday on the historic banks of the Occoquan river, the site of the ancient town of Colchester, under the auspices of the Prince William Educational Association, an assemblage novel in character - a historic picnic, the first of a series designed to encourage the present generation to study the past ... The assemblage was very large and embraced many leading citizens of Fairfax and Prince William counties, a great number of ladies also attending. At three o'clock the town hall of Occoquan was filled and the assemblage was called to order by M. D. Hall, school superintendent of Fairfax county. Mr. S. M. Janney made an address of welcome to the visitors. Music entertained the gathering and then Mr. Wm. H. Snowden, of Arcturus, read a history of the vanished town, making a life-like picture of the Colchester of other days. Mr. George C. Round read "Mariamne of Bell-Aire," a romance of an old village of Prince William county. It is the intention of the Prince William Educational Association to hold historic picnics at the sites of all the old colonial towns of that region. The next gathering of the kind will be held next August at Dumfries, another ancient port of entry in Prince William County. 44
125
126
Chapter VII Notes
1
U. S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (128 vols .; 1st ser .; Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880-1910), V, 4,5.
2 Ibid., p. 8.
3 Local News (Alexandria), January 31, 1862. This sheet was published from October 15, 1861, to February 10, 1862. In May the Alexandria Gazette resumed publication.
4 The Democratic Recorder (Fredericksburg), February 4, 1862, quoting the Richmond paper.
5 Local News (Alexandria), February 1, 1862, quoting the Philadelphia paper. The final comment appeared on February 4th. Official Records, V, 529, 950.
6 Gilbert Thompson, Diary, p. 169. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
7
Phenix Gazette (Alexandria), April 12, 1832.
8 Ibid., December 24, 1833.
9
Ibid., August 8, 1832.
10
Alexandria Gazette, January 12, 1835.
11 Ibid., January 19, 1871.
127
·
12 Ibid., July 6, 1870.
13 Ibid., July 23, December 17, 30, 1870.
14 Ibid., January 18, 1871. 15 Ibid., January 27, 28, 1871. Birch, Recollections, p. 9.
16 Dorothy Troth Muir, Potomac Interlude: The Story of Woodlawn Mansion and the Mount Vernon Neighborhood 1846-1943 (Washington: Mount Vernon Print Shop, 1943), p. 131. Alexandria Gazette, March 10, 1871.
17 Alexandria Gazette, July 21, 1871.
18
Interview with Mr. Elmer Metzger, September 1971. He worked on the concrete capping.
19 Alexandria Gazette, July 15, 17, 1871.
20 Ibid., April 15, 1872, quoting the Washington Chronicle. A century later the neighborhood viewed another innovation when the first Auto-Train, with its northern terminus at Lorton, Virginia, made its maiden run to Florida (Evening Star, December 7, 1971).
21 John B. Mordecai, A Brief History of the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad (Richmond: Old Dominion Press, 1941), p. 44, states that the line was completed to Quantico by July 2, 1872. Alexandria Gazette, June 24, 1872.
22 U. S. Congress, Senate, River and Harbor Reports, S. Exec. Doc. 25, 42nd Cong., 3rd sess., 1872, p. 193. A 4' channel would cost $10,400. In Virginia, legislation to improve navigation on the Occoquan was introduced in 1815.
23 L. C. Gottschalk, "The Effects of Soil Erosion on Navigation in the Upper Chesapeake Bay," The Geographical Review, XXXV (April 1945), p. 219-237.
128
24 U. S. War Department, Annual Report, Report of the Chief of Engineers, 1884 (Washington, D. C .: Government Printing Office, 1884), pt. 2, p. 1008.
25
Gottschalk, "Soil Erosion," p. 231.
26
U. S. War Department, Index to Reports of the Chief of Engineers 1866- 1912, Vol. I, Rivers and Harbors (Washington, D. C .: Government Printing Office, 1915), p. 390. Summary of appropriations, estimates, contracts etcarefor work on the Occoquan.
27
Gottschalk, "Soil Erosion," p. 237.
28
U. S. War Department, Rivers and Harbors, p. 391.
29
U. S. Corps of Engineers, Roads and Canals (104 vols .; Washington, D.C .: Government Printing Office, 1789-1971), LXXXVIII, (1872), #17; p. 39.
30 U. S. War Department, Annual Report, Report of the Chief of Engineers, 1897 (Washington, D.C .: Government Printing Office, 1897), part 2, 1323.
31 The deeds are cited in Chapter VI, Note 33.
32
Fairfax County Deed Book J-4, pp. 27, 497. The deed back to Joseph Potter said a list of lots sold for taxes was filed in the State Auditor's Office, but this could not be located in the Auditor's files at the Virginia State Library.
33 Land tax records show John Hughes, in 1854, owning one lot formerly Reardon and Beard's, with buildings worth $125 (*19?, bought from Cruse in 1829, in Deed Book U-3, p. 466). Two lots formerly Wagener's and then Daniel and Mary Lee's, may have been #21 and 23. Six lots had formerly belonged to Thompson Clarke. (The 1835 tax list shows that Clarke had two lots acquired from Bowen, perhaps #6 and 42, and three former Wagener lots acquired from Sinah Porter, Deed Book A-3, p. 147. probably #1/36, 2 and 9. The deed from Bowen to Clarke is in Deed Book B-3, p. 306.) The 1855 tax list has a notation that the ten lots came to Hughes by collateral inheritance.
129
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34
These sales are shown in the tax lists but deeds have not been identified. It is possible that the lots which were retained by Hughes included the Duncan house (Fairfax Arms). The four lots kept through 1890 had buildings worth $400.
35 In addition to the holdings of Potter, Weston and Hughes there were three lots (formerly owned by heirs of Ludwell Lee; these included #5 and 13) acquired by John S. Powell for payment of taxes in 1870. One lot was retained by the heirs of Edward Bates until 1884; this had belonged in the Wagener estate.
36 Dr. B. R. Heim, A Guide to the Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay and James River (Washington: by the author, 1881),p. 34.
37 Alexandria Gazette, July 7, 1874.
38 Ibid., July 1, 1874.
39
Ibid., September 5, 1873; March 4, 1879; February 8, 24, 1879. 40 Ibid., October 29, 30, 1873. 41 Ibid., June 11, 1892.
42
Ibid., August 6, 1898.
43 Ibid., December 10, 1894. 44 Ibid., August 9, 1897.
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Locality where the tow boat Toby struck and was damaged on 1. March12, 1915
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