USA > Virginia > Fairfax County > Fairfax County > Colchester Colonial Port on the Potomac > Part 3
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Conner's purchase consisted of five lots chosen for their strategic position; #5 and #38 faced Fairfax Street at the waterfront and the others (#22, 24, 40) were those nearest the crossroads on the south side of Essex Street. Like Cloninger, whose name often appears in the store ledgers, Conner was a customer of Henderson and may have been holding the water lots on his behalf. Whether this was the case, or whether he
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revised his predictions of the town's future, Conner sold those lots to Henderson and divested himself of two others, keeping only #40 for himself.
A contemporary letter describes the town:
Colchester on Occoquan, Va. May 1760
Dear cousin Mary, I have opportunity to send you a message by Mr. John McGregor, master of the brig "Good Fortune," which came into our port of entry nearly three weeks ago, and is now loading with tobacco and will sail for London in a few days. By the Good Fortune we received your welcome letter and the bale of acceptable tokens of your abiding remembrance and affection. Nothing you could have sent us would have been more useful to us in this far off country. We are very grateful for your good offices. Mc- Gregor is said to be a good seaman and his vessel very staunch, but the weather at sea was very tempestuous and he was nearly six weeks making the voyage. May he find more favoring gales on his return. I have concluded to be a Virginian and to cast my lot among the colonists. I like the country. It is a land of plenty for everybody. Colchester has a very pleasant situation on a deep river. Its trade is increasing and houses are building. We see many Indians passing through, but they are friendly and going over the mountains. The wars are over and the plantations are peaceful and quiet. We have regular church service in the neighborhood. The people are very hospitable to all newcomers. Remember me to all inquiring friends, and believe me as ever, 'Your loving cousin' Joseph Adams' 19
Trustees of the Town
The group designated by the Virginia Assembly in 1753 to govern Colchester consisted of Peter Wagener, Edward Washington, Daniel Mc Carty, John Barry and William Ellzey. The authority of the trustees was not subject to direction from the county justices (although Daniel McCarty also served in that capacity, as did, after 1764, William Ellzey20), but only from the legislature. Wagener was the clerk of Fairfax County and other later trustees were also justices of the court, so that there would naturally have been close contact between the two bodies. Later trustees were Benjamin Grayson, Hector Ross, William Thompson and Alexander Henderson.
The trustees kept a set of town books, which have vanished. Reference was made to these in a 1788 deed21 but nothing is known of their contents. Of the nine men who governed the town, no evidence has come to light which shows that McCarty, Barry or Ellzey played an important part in Colchester affairs.
Peter Wagener
Peter Wagener lived on a plantation adjacent to Colchester which he called Stisted, after the name of the English parish where his father served from 1707 to 1742.
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Previously the Reverend Mr. Wagener had spent two years in Virginia where, according to Governor Gooch, he "was better known as a bad painter than as a parson. " Born near Colchester in Essex, England on April 5, 1717, Peter Wagener came to Virginia in 1738 to practise law. "He told me," wrote the Governor, "if the climate agreed with him, and he met with encouragements, The had determined] to stay. "22
The younger Wagener apparently did meet "encouragements," for two months after the letter was written the Virginia Gazette reported, "On Thursday the 5th instant, at Piscataqua in Essex County, Mr. Peter Wagener, attorney at law, only son of the Reverend and Worshipful Peter Wagener of Essex, England, was married to Miss Katy Robinson, only daughter of the Hon. John Robinson, one of His Majesty's Council, a young lady of very amiable qualities. "23 In 1742 Wagener was appointed clerk of the Prince William County court, and was still living in that county in 1748 when he advertised in the Maryland paper for a runaway Welsh blacksmith. 24 He assumed the clerkship of Fairfax County four years later, subsequently buying from John Graham the upper half of Bourne's patent and establishing himself on that tract. 25
The site of the Stisted house has not been located, but was recalled by a descendant:
I remember the old house, built after the English style, with lovely grass in which no weed was allowed to show its head, and sprinkled with wild hyacinth from England. Luscious pears grew by the old well and a giant black walnut tree in the near field. How delicious was the rice and syrup Aunt Mary Lee used to fix for us after our long trip along the river and the bay! And how fine the "sugar pears" we stole from the chest up in the room under the rafters! ... the old home is gone and the railroad runs through the once tender, green grass! 26
In the field below the present Lazy Susan Inn, near the river bank, are the graves of Peter Wagener's son and of Aunt Mary Lee.
The Wageners lived comfortably at Stisted. They had a chariot drawn by four horses and a riding chair for individual travel. Some of the furniture may have been made on the plantation, for Wagener's inventory mentions three walnut tables and a walnut desk. They had nearly two dozen Queens china plates and 35 made of pewter, and the house was heated by a cannon stove. Peter had a silver watch and wore silver stock buckles but his reading matter was "The Compleat Farmer. "27
His son, also named Peter, was made deputy clerk for Fairfax County in 1762, when 20 years of age, and succeeded his father as clerk ten years later.28 In 1770 he became a vestryman of Truro Parish. Upon the death of his father, who left no will, he inherited the estate. On April 14, 1774, Wagener married Sinah, the daughter of Daniel McCarty. She was then about 18 years of age, and McCarty gave his new son-in-law a thousand acre tract in Fauquier County.29 The Wageners had two sons, Beverly and Peter, and five daughters. Sinah (who married first Morton, then Porter), Ann (who married John Simpson), Sarah (who married Joseph Red), and Mary (who married first Grayson, then Beal). 30 Mary's first marriage was not approved by her father, who cut her out of his will.
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George Washington, en route to the 1775 Convention in Richmond, stopped to dine with Wagener. They had often gone foxhunting together before the Revolution. During that conflict Wagener was first the lieutenant for Fairfax County and later a colonel. Among his other duties he set up the cannon to defend Alexandria when the British came up the Potomac in 1781,31 and was clerk of the Hustings Court in Alexandria from its first session in 1780. Under his direction the county militia improved the road leading from the Georgetown ferry to the ford across the Occoquan at Wolf Run Shoals (inundated by the present reservoir) so that wagon trains of the forces converging on Yorktown would not be delayed by the ferry at Colchester. 32 After the Revolution he continued to act as county lieutenant and in 1790 was an Overseer of the Poor. 33
Wagener had apparently kept the Fairfax County records at his house when the courthouse in Alexandria became dilapidated; he requested permission from the court to move them back to that town on February 21, 1791, but two years passed before this was accomplished. Thus, it may have been that the records were housed near Colchester as they had been when Catesby Cocke was county clerk before 1752.34
In 1793, when Peter Wagener wrote his will, he stated that he was then in perfect health. The bulk of his estate went to his son, the fourth Peter Wagener. It included Stisted, the tavern called the Stone Ordinary, a lot near the gate of the town, and half a lot in Alexandria, Bequests to his wife included half of the Fauquier tract given him by Col. McCarty. Beverly, their oldest son, had apparently been given part of the land previously. His estate was valued later at nearly $6,000, which did not include the 29 slaves.
Wagener died before May 1798, His wife Sinah lived until Christmas Day, 1809.35 Her directions as to the disposal of her property led to a lawsuit between her children, caused possibly by the stipulation that her sons-in-law were to have no control over it. Sinah Morton, the Wagener's oldest daughter, had first choice of her mother's lots. She apparently chose those on the waterfront, for in 1829 she sold three lots to Thompson Clarke; two on opposite sides of Essex Street at the river (probably #1, 36, 2) and another farther downstream near the old tobacco warehouse (#9).36
Sinah Morton also bought one-third of the Stisted tract from her brother Peter in 1810. This third was alloted to her niece (who was Peter's daughter), Martha Ann Wagener. 37 Martha Ann and her husband Edward Bates lived on the tract during the early years of their marriage and owned the 2862 acres until 1859, although before that time they had moved to Lebanon (on Mason Neck). The tract extended from Ox Road to the Occoquan and included Bates landing and Bates Creek. 38
Martha Ann's sister, Mary Elizabeth, inherited 1822 acres of Stisted from the fourth Peter Wagener, who died about 1812 without leaving a will. Mary Elizabeth married Daniel Lee after 182539 and the Lees lived on the land until after the Civil War. She was the Aunt Mary Lee mentioned in the description of Stisted. Mrs. Lee died in 1870. Her children sold some of the property after her death but retained 94 acres until 1907.40
Of the town lots in Colchester owned by the Wageners, the land tax records show that from 1781 until 1798 they were taxed for four lots, from 1799 to 1810 for
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two. From 1811 to 1826 taxes were paid on five (the added lots were #21, 23 and 38, bought by Wagener in 1811 along with the 22 acre strip behind the lots). The value of buildings on the latter lots was $230 in 1817. After 1826 the Wagener lots were divided between his daughters. Mrs. Bates got the three lots without buildings, of which #38 ("a wharf lot") she sold in 1829 to Thompson Clarke.4| Heirs of Bates paid taxes on two lots until 1873, and on one until 1874.
Mrs. Lee inherited the two improved lots (#21, 23?). In 1833 Thomas Beard bought an unidentified lot from her. 42 The Lee's son in 1878 sold 17 acres between the town and the railroad; this tract was acquired in 1886 by the Weston family. Weston descendants (the Metzgers) own part of this land in 1974. 43
Edward Washington
An inspector at the tobacco warehouse below the falls of the Occoquan River in 1749, 44 Washington had been in Prince William County since 1734. He was under-sheriff in 1737. Two years later he sold a tract to William Fairfax which later became part of Belvoir plantation. 45 Washington married Mary, the widow of Edward Barry of Huntington, and was appointed guardian for her three children. Huntington, on Silverbrook Road (Route #600) near Ox Road (Route #123), contained 504 acres. 46 Their dwelling was standing in 1972, but scheduled for future demolition. Despite a fancied resemblance to Lund Washington of Hayfield and his more famous cousin of Mount Vernon, Edward's branch of the Washington family is thought ot have come from Ireland. 47
When the tobacco inspection was moved downstream to Colchester in 1763, Edward Washington became an inspector at that place. In 1765 he received 154 votes in an unsuccessful bid for election to the vestry of Truro Parish. 48 He died on March 31, 1792. Edward, his son, succeeded him at the warehouses and also served as vestryman from 1779 to 1785.49 The younger Edward Washington died in 1813, leaving seven children, and his family sold Huntington in the late 1820's. The farm was purchased in 1831 by Isaac Hutton, an Englishman, and remained in the same family until the 1960's when it was acquired by the Cafritz Company. 50
John Barry
Little is known of this trustee except that he was an inspector at Pohick warehouse in 1758, 1759 and 1765.5| Barry does not appear on the 1748/9 List of Tithables in Truro Parish; he may have been a child of Edward Barry who by 1751 was old enough not to require a guardian. There is also a William Barry on that list. John could have been a member of his family.
John Barry was a collector of tithes in 1740 and 1742, a partner in McCarty & Barry, clerk of Truro Parish from 1765 to 1775. He died in 1775.52
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William Ellzey (Elzey)
Ellzey's first appearance in the Fairfax County Court Order Books was in May 1758. His name is not on the aforementioned Tithables list, but he may have been one of the family of Lewis Elzey, justice and vestryman. William Ellzey was an attorney. His conduct on May 17, 1763 seems to have displeased the court, for they accused him of misbehavior and told the sheriff to keep him in custody until he put up 150 as bond. The following year he became a justice of that court.
By 1774 he was on the Loudoun County Committee of Correspondence, and one of the Virginia trustees for the project for improving navigation on the Potomac. 53 Ellzey was also a trustee of the new town at Warm Springs. His wife was Frances Westwood. 54
Ellzey died in Loudoun on January 24, 1796. His obituary said he had practised law for 40 years. A few months after his death, his son was elected to represent the county in the Virginia legislature. 55
Daniel McCarty
Vestryman of Truro Parish 1749-1784, justice from 1749 to 1783, and a trustee of the Patowmack Company in 1774, Daniel McCarty played many roles in Fairfax County affairs. In 1749 he was inspector of the Pohick warehouse, which was built on his land. McCarty was the son of burgess, vestryman, and justice Dennis McCarty of Mount Air, and the grandson of Daniel McCarty, Speaker of the House of Burgesses in 1717, Like Barry and Ellzey, McCarty did not seem to be involved in Colchester affairs. 56
Benjamin Grayson
Captain Benjamin Grayson was a Scots merchant in Prince William County and a justice of that county court in November 1731, The first courthouse stood on the lower shore of the Occoquan near the ferry landing in the present town of Wood- bridge. Grayson lived about two miles south of the Occoquan at Belle Air, which is no longer standing. 57 Grayson was twice married, first to Susanna Monroe and then to a Mrs. Sinton. 58 His son William was a Colonel in the Revolution and one of the first two United States Senators from Virginia; another son, Spence, was the rector of Cameron Parish in Loudoun County and later of Dettingen Parish in Prince William.
Grayson purchased six lots in Colchester in 1756 and established a store there before his death in 1757. His son Benjamin continued the business. Young Alexander Henderson, arriving in 1758, considered Grayson a formidable rival. "He is a young man, just come to a pretty good fortune, has a number of people in debt to him, and seems to regard the extent rather than the cheapness of his purchase ." 59.
With his fellow merchants Henderson and Ross, Grayson was soon selling lottery tickets along with his other merchandise. 60 Unlike these cautious Scots, however, Benjamin Grayson lost no time before expanding into new ventures. He leased
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Catesby Cocke's thousand acre Mason Neck plantation, Belmont, in 1760 and paid £800 for it the next year.61 In 1762 Grayson entered into parnership with entrepreneur John Ballendine in a flour mill, bakery, and store upstream from Colchester on the lower shore of the Occoquan. 62 He was active in urging that the decaying Occoquan warehouse be abandoned and new tobacco inspection be established in Colchester. A revealing line in Henderson's ledger shows a debt of £15 owed by Grayson, who agreed to repay Henderson "the money by him expended in promoting the remove of the inspection and his consent to the warehouses being fixed on your lot in Colchester. "63 The warehouses were built on Grayson's lot.
He bought a mill site on Pohick Creek and between 1763 and 1765 added to the six lots inherited from his father several others, including #7, 8 and 29. In the midst of these activities he became a justice of the Fairfax Court by March 1763, and also had a hand in an unsuccessful attempt to start a commercial winery in the town. Grayson's holdings seem to have included 14 lots, which left him considerably over-extended financially. As early as June, 1762 he began mortgaging parts of his property to his Glasgow principals, Blackburn, Scott & Company, and to other creditors. 64
A contributing factor in Grayson's decline may have been his purchases of such items as a dozen packs of playing cards. 65 This of course can be only conjecture. Whatever the cause, Blackburn & Company obtained a court decree in June 1765 which stated that Grayson had no rights to lots #6 and 42 and that their firm was empowered to sell all of his property. Frequent advertisements appeared in both the Maryland and Virginia papers offering for sale the Belmont tract, the tobacco ware- houses, and the town lots. 66
To add to his other woes, Grayson was defeated in the 1765 vestry election.
By October 1766 Benjamin Grayson and his wife Elizabeth had fled to Loudoun County and sold Belmont to his Glasgow firm for £100. The warehouses and the lots met the same fate. Henderson's ledger for October 1767 refers to Grayson as in- solvent. He added wryly that he had lost half the 22 balance due on Grayson's account 67
A few belongings were salvaged. Grayson kept his silver watch, a silver tankard, and an assortment of spoons, but he had only two beds and a modest amount of furniture (including a broken backgammon table). When he died, before April 1768, his possessions were valued at L52.12.9.68 His widow retained her dower rights in lots #3, 19, 21, 23 and a family chronicler wrote that she had secured a "handsome estate" to leave her son and daughter. 69
Grayson's brother Spence paid tax on three of the lots 1782-1798 and two others were listed in the tax books of that period as belonging to the Grayson estate. Benjamin Grayson's brief career well illustrates the difficulties in which Virginia merchants often became entangled.
Hector Ross
The career of Hector Ross contrasts sharply with that of Benjamin Grayson. A factor, or resident agent, for David Dalzel, George Oswald & Company of Glasgow
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(later known as Oswald & Denniston), Hector Ross was in Colchester as early as April 3, 1760. On that date he was mentioned in the Maryland Gazette as one of the merchants handling sales of tickets for a benefit lottery for an Alexandrian returning to England. This predated by two years Alexander Henderson's first acknow- ledgement of the presence of yet another competitor, although he sold Ross a supply of a popular medicine known as Turlington's Balsam of Life that same spring.70 In a letter to his own employer, Henderson wrote, "I fear Mr. Ross, who is now come for a powerful company in Glasgow and whose goods have now arrived, will be a very potent rival and troublesome neighbor to me ,71 Despite this lack of enthusiasm Henderson had not hesitated to sell Ross his lot #15 in July 1761 for E120 current money. As the purchase price in 1758 had been only £15 sterling, the increase reflected the improve- ments made by Henderson and perhaps a modest profit. Ross also leased property from Grayson between 1763 and 1765.72
By 1770 Ross had gained a sufficient footing in commerce to undertake, like Henderson, some public service. He was recommended for sheriff in August 1768 and served in that capacity by November 1770.73 The previous summer he had attended a meeting of merchants in Williamsburg and was put on a committee to report on the estate of trade in the colony. In June he was made a justice of the Fairfax Court, a position which he held for 20 years. 74
Ross planned to go to Great Britain in late 1775, for he made out a power-of- attorney, but if the trip took place he was back in Virginia by the fall of 1778 and serving as sheriff.75 During the Revolution he was the Commonwealth's Escheator in Alexandria76 and also performed such services as furnishing Dr. Jenefer for use of the Continental Hospital 300 lb. coffee, 500 lb.tea, 500 lb. brown sugar and "2 pieces of oznabrigs with necessary thread to make the same into beds for the sick."""
According to deeds in 1775 and 1788, Hector Ross was a trustee during this period, although it appears that he went to Alexandria when John Gibson arrived in Colchester as replacement for Dalzel, Oswald & Company. That firm had stores at Aquia, Bladensburg, Piscataway and Georgetown.78
Ross added several lots to his original purchase of #15 in Colchester, buying #12 in January 1772 and #3, 19, 21 and 23 in September. In 1773 he sold the last four of these to Henderson and bought #6 and 42, the lots originally intended for the tobacco warehouses. Between 1770 and 1772 Ross sold an unspecified lot to his Glasgow firm. 19 A water lot at the south tip of town ("11) was owned by Ross from 1775 to 1790. He sold #12 in August 1785 to his replacement as factor, John Gibson. From 1782 to 1798 Ross paid taxes on three lots.
It was at the home of John Gibson, then living near Dumfries, that Hector Ross died on March 14, 1803. His obituary said that he was over 70 years of age, 80
a man of middle size, thin habit and delicate constituion; was for many years before the Revolution of America, a factor of a respectable mercantile house in Scotland which trust he discharged with fidelity to his employers, satisfaction to his customers and honor to himself - his wit was acute, his memory retentive, his judgment strong and his friendship sincere. Blest with an uncommon share of good nature and tenderness of heart, he was a check to the imperious, the
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honest yeoman's friend and the poors' idol - in an extensive private acquaintance [he had] not one reviler-slander shrinks at his name ...
No mention was made of a family, but Hector Ross seems to have left a spotless reputation behind him.
William Thompson
The last of the known trustees of Colchester was also the latest in time to settle in the town. In December 1777 he was a Captain in the Fairfax Militia. 81 The Virginia Gazette referred to him as a merchant in Colchester offering tickets for a lottery on November 27, 1779. Thompson was in August of that year acquiring the #19-21-23 group of lots from Alexander Henderson. He bought #14 in 1782 and #38 (the wharf lot) three years later. In 1788 Henderson sold him #30 and in 1790 Thompson bought another water lot, #11, from Ross. Lot #14, "where he had lately resided, "82 he sold in 1795 to Richard Chichester; the following year #30 was also sold. 83
The cluster bought from Henderson may have included #25 and 39, as well as the strip behind the five lots, for no later deeds have been found for #25 and 39. The strip behind these lots was sold in 1811 by Thompson's executors, along with #21 and 23.84
Thompson's standing in the community may be judged by the succession of public offices entrusted to him as well as by his eight lots in the town. He was still a Captain in the Fairfax Militia in 1787. In October of that year he was appointed, with Peter Wagener and others, to a committee who were to get the freeholders of the county to sign a paper endorsing the new Federal Constitution. 85 By 1788 he was a trustee of the town and from 1790 to 1793 its postmaster.86 In June 1790 he became a justice of the Fairfax court. 87
Thompson was in partnership with a Mr. Washington, 88 who was a relative of his wife Ann. She had a brother (Lund) living in Colchester and an uncle (Lawrence)89 living at Belmont plantation on Mason Neck. Ann Thompson inherited Belmont from her uncle and lived there during her widowhood. In Colchester the Thompsons were in 1793 living near the town gate90, most likely in the house now known as the Fairfax Arms.
William Thompson made his will in 1796, mentioning a son and two daughters but leaving his estate to his wife. During his last years he may have suffered financial reverses, for in 1797 he sold four of his lots, and later sold the bulk of his household goods to his wife's uncle to meet security on a bond. 91
Ann Thompson's husband and her uncle died that same year. The household goods were sold in April 1799 and Lawrence Washington's will was presented for probate on December 16th; William Thompson's will was probated on January 20, 1800.
Many of the household items were already at Belmont, according to her uncle's inventory. 92 The Colchester house was rented to Zachariah Ward in 180093 and Mrs. Thompson moved to Belmont. Her son lived there until about 1829.
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Chapter Il Notes
1 This church was mentioned in the 1730 Act establishing Hamilton Parish, when freeholders were directed to meet at the church above the ferry (Hening, Statutes, IV, 304). In the Vestry Book of Truro Parish this church was called Occoquan Church until 1733, then referred to as Pohic. It may have been then moved to the crossroad location where Cranford Methodist Church stands (at Gunston Hall Road and Old Colchester Road ). A church at that site was used until the present Pohick Church was completed in 1774.
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