USA > Virginia > Fairfax County > Fairfax County > Colchester Colonial Port on the Potomac > Part 8
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 | Part 16
36 #190:205, 233.
76
37 #194:3, 6, 7, 8.
38 The Diaries of George Washington 1748-1799, ed. by John C. Fitzpatrick, (4 vols .; Boston: Houghton Mifflin for the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, 1925), I, 301.
39 #194:11. 40 #196:290. 41 The deeds involving #5 and 38 are in Fairfax County Deed Book K-1, p. 209, 211 and the sale is referred to in Q-1, p. 452; to #25 and 39 in K-1, p. 187; to #19, 21, 23 in L-1, p. 41. This last purchase also included lot #3. The reference to the wagon road is in Hening, Statutes, VIII, 549.
42 Charles Lee Lewis, Famous American Marines (Boston: L. C. Page & Company, 1950), p. 75. Washington, Writings, III, 115.
43
Fairfax County Deed Book K-1, p. 296. This was written in January. When the marriage contract was recorded in April, Henry Moore was already dead.
44
Hening, Statutues, VIII, 508.
45
Hening, Statutes, VIII, p. 549. 46
The deed for #22 is in Fairfax County Deed Book K-1, p. 288; #24 referred to in K-1, p. 219 and #40 in K-1, p. 217; #37 in M-1, p. 74; #30 and 32 in M-1, p. 173. This last deed included #10 as well. Wagener's five lots were #1, 2, 9, 17, 36.
47 Snowden, Some Landmarks, p. 73.
48
Maryland Gazette, November 22, 1771, June 28, 1770, and September 26, 1771.
77
:
49
Hening, Statutes, VII, 530, 582.
50 Arthur Pierce Middleton, Tobacco Coast: a Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era, ed. by George Carrington Mason, (Newport News, Virginia: The Mariners Museum, 1953), pp. 100, 282.
51 Middleton, Tobacco Coast, p. 95. The 1775 crop was worth four million dollars. Page 121.
52 Ibid., p. 105. 53 Hening, Statutes, VIII, 508. 54 Glassford, Records, #186:236. There are no entries in the ledgers for 1762 or 1763. Other materials may have been furnished at a previous time or purchased from Grayson.
55 Fairfax County Court Order Book, August 1768.
56
Hening, Statutes, VIII, 508.
57
Fairfax County Will Book C-1, p. 19. Estate account of Christopher Neale. 58 Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, ed. by Benjamin J. Hillman, (6 vols .; Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1966) VI, 330. October 27, 1769, court .
59 Mason, Papers, 1, 234, 339.
60
Council Journals, 1, 448. July 4, 1777. Francis Cofer was appointed assistant inspector.
78
1
61
Fairfax County Court Order Book, August 23, 1783. Bayly had acquired the warehouses from Blackburn & Bogle between 1767 and 1770; the deed is probably that indexed in missing Deed Book H-1, p. 321. His will may be found in Proceedings in Land Causes, 1, 6.
62 Council Journals, III. May 13, 1782. A list of the inspectors may be found in the appendix of the present research report.
63 Virginia State Auditor's Ledger #179. Account of Duty on Tobacco, Colchester Warehouse 1781-1789. Accession #28. Virginia State Library.
64
Hening, Statutes, X, 481.
65
Council Journals, III, September 25, November 7, 13, December 24, 1782. 66 List of Tobacco Warehouses on Virginia Rivers, September 1780. Great Britain, Public Record Office MSS 30/11/3-4. Microfilm reel #510, p. 24, 25. The compiler of the list considered the total "rather a short than middling yearly crop."
67 Memoire Sur Le Commerce du Tabac de la Virginie et Maryland (Londres: 30 Mai, 1766). #846 in the George Arents Collection on the History of Tobacco, New York Public Library.
68 Samuel Shepherd, The Statutes at Large of Virginia ... 1792-1806, a continuation of Hening, (3 vols., New Series; reprint; New York: AMS Press, 1970), 1, 263, 264, 404; 11, 156.
69 Auditor's Ledger #195/30.
70
Mason, Papers, III, 1139. 71 Fairfax County Deed Book W-1, p. 316. Report of inspector John J. Stone, September 16, 1795.
79
,
72
Code of Virginia, 1819, pt. 2, p. 135. An Act to reduce into one law all previous regulations on tobacco established warehouses at Aquia and Colchester, and set the salaries of inspectors at $208.33. It is doubtful whether this legislation was acted upon.
73 Hening, Statutes, X. 481, 497.
74 Ibid., VII, 571. 75 Harrison, Landmarks, p. 402. 76 Fairfax County Deed Book E-1, p. 43.
77
Glassford, Records, #186. August 28, 1764.
78 Ibid., #187:98. The ledger does not mention whether these were loaves or pounds of ship's bread.
79 Ibid., #190:202. 80 Mason, Papers, 1, 45. A Loan Agreement for Maurice Pound, October 1759. A note by the editor mentions the other signers.
81 Fairfax County Deed Book D-1, p. 708. The page, unfortunately, has been torn out.
82
Referred to in Deed Book E-1, p. 156.
83
Maryland Gazette, August 1, 1765.
84 Hening, Statutes, VII, 569. The Act also offers a prize for silk grown in the colony.
80
1
85 Fairfax County Court Order Book, March 15, 1763.
86
Shepherd, Statutes, 1, 142.
87 Fairfax County Court Order Book, February 19, 1760.
88
Hening, Statutes, X, 207.
89
Fairfax County Court Order Book, April 19, 1790, February 21, 1791. 90
The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell 1774-1777 (New York: The Dial Press, 1924), p. 20. 91 The Colchester Tavern accounts in Henderson's ledger were placed under Wagener's entry. Wagener's other waterfront lot , #2, was on the south side of Essex Street. It was mentioned frequently in the 1789 Mason v. Wagener suit but there was no reference to a tavern on the lot. Fairfax County Deed Book R-1, p. 124 states that Mason could build a house for his ferryman to live in. See also p. 417, 421.
92
Glassford, Records, #216:10.
93 Ibid., #184:132 for tavern items; #185:38 for corks; #186:234 for rum. 94 Maryland Gazette, June 3, 1762.
95 Glassford, Records, #189:102. Tyler's account has a notation that he had died. William Courts' background is mentioned in Fairfax County Deed Book G-1, p. 144. Washington, Diaries, January 23, 1771.
96 Virginia Gazette (Purdie), August 31, 1775.
97 John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth, A Tour in the United States of America, (2 vols .; London: G. Robinson, 1784), 1, 176.
81
:
98 Virginia Journal & Alexandria Advertiser, February 1, 1787; Dumfries, Virginia Gazette & Agricultural Repository, June 14, 1792. The few surviving issues of this paper are in the library of Harvard University, with photostats in the Rare Book Room, Library of Congress.
99
Columbian Mirror & Alexandria Gazette, October 27, 1798.
100
Fairfax County Deed Book K-1, p. 187 refers to "Linton's inclosure." The deed from Waugh is in Deed Book F-1, p. 73 (missing book). There is no deed indexed from Grayson. (Maryland Gazette, July 9, 1767.
101
Glassford, Records, #185:141; #187:10. Snowden, Some Landmarks, p. 73. 102
Fairfax County Deed Book K-1, p. 197, L-1, p. 41. Grayson's mortgages are mentioned in the Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), December 9, 1773.
103
Fairfax County Deed Book B-2, p. 192. The list has been rearranged into categories.
104 Columbian Mirror & Alexandria Gazette, October 9, 1800.
105
Alexandria Advertiser & Commercial Intelligencer, October 21, 1802. 106
John Davis, Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America during 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801 and 1802, intro. and notes by A. J. Morrison, (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1909), p. 267.
107 Maryland Gazette, June 16, 1774.
108
Clifford Dowdey, The Golden Age: A Climate for Greatness in Virginia 1732-1775 (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1970), p. 177.
109
Washington, Writings, III, 237n. Bryan Fairfax to Washington, August 5, 1774.
82
110
Alexandria Gazette, July 19, 1876.
111
Council Journals, October 15, 1776, for the Fairfax Militia, September 17th for Prince William; also September 7th; April 3, 1781.
112
Snowden, Some Landmarks, p. 83. Maryland Gazette, November 7, 1776, gives a deposition of Capt. Robert Conway on the skirmish. The rebuilt Richland house is still standing at Widewater, Virginia, next to the railroad. It is owned by the Kendall family.
113
Council Journals, June 11, 1776.
114
Ibid., July 22, 1776, mentioning the Dumfries hospital. Lewis C. Duncan, Medical Men in the American Revolution 1775-1783, The American Medical Bulletin, Number 25, (Carlisle Barracks, Penna .: Medical Field Service School, by direction of the Secretary of War, 1931), pp. 14-17.
115
Council Journals, December 4, 1777.
116
Duncan, Medical Men, p. 204.
117
Maryland Gazette, June 12, 1777.
118 "The Journal of Ebenezer Hazard in Virginia, 1777," ed. by Fred Shelley, Virginia Magazine, LXII (October 1954), 402.
119
Maryland Gazette, July 10, 1777; Virginia Gazette (D. &A.), September 14, 1776. Edwin W. Beitzell, Life on the Potomac River (Abell, Md .: for the author, 1968), p. 24, discusses the economic effect of the war upon the Potomac region.
120
Council Journals, January 1, 1777.
121 Maryland Gazette, July 12, 1781.
83
122
"Naval Office on the Potomac," William & Mary Quarterly, 2nd series, II, (October 1922) 292.
123
Fairfax County Deed Book D-4, p. 388.
124
Virginia Gazette, November 27, 1779.
125
Washington, Writings, XVII, 155. November 19, 1779.
126
Calendar of Maryland State Papers, No. 3, The Brown Books, ed. by Roger Thomas, (Annapolis: Hall of Records Commission, 1948), p. 78.
127
Baron von Closen, Revolutionary Journal, 1780-1783, trans. and ed. by Evelyn M. Acomb (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1958), pp. 211, 214.
128
J. J. Jusserand, With Americans of Past and Present Days (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916), p. 53, quoting letters of French officers.
129
" Journal of Claud Blanchard 1780-1783," trans. by William Duane, ed. by Thomas Balch (1876), in Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution (New York: New York Times and Arno Press, 1969), p. 165.
130
Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781 and 1782, 2 vols., rev. trans., ed. by Howard C. Rice, Jr., (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963), 11, 580n.
131 Ibid., p. 615; Alexandria Gazette, September 5, 1857.
132
Ethel Roby Hayden, "Port Tobacco, Lost Town of Maryland, " Maryland Historical Magazine, XL (December 1945), 261.
84
Chapter IV THE POST REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD
Town Life Returns to Normal
A traveler passing through Colchester in August 1787, described the town as "pleasantly situated on rising ground, has but 20 houses but likely to increase. It has much country trade - a little below the ferry is a large Bay from one to seven miles over. The town is airy and healthy. "! Count Luigi Castiglioni, who was there a year earlier, could find nothing more to say than calling it "a little place on the Occoquan. "2 The first observer, Samuel Vaughan, commented also that there were two hundred houses in Dumfries. This estimate seems exaggerated, although the population of Alexandria in 1785 was estimated at 2,000. Alexandria loaded 20 to 30 vessels annually with tobacco, wheat and flour, exporting about 10,000 hogsheads yearly at a guinea per hogshead, according to another visitor, Robert Hunter. 3 Even before the Revolution the towns of Alexandria and Dumfries, with their headstart of four years over Colchester, had more mercantile establishments. In 1775, there were 11 merchants in Dumfries, 20 in Alexandria and four in Colchester listed in Robert Carter's papers. 4
Commercial activity, however, was not at a standstill. Nicholas and Valentine Peers, Alexandria merchants, opened a Colchester store in June 1784. John Gibson had a storehouse on the main street, and John Brown opened the Castle Inn in 1786. Alexander Henderson retained his store and Huie & Reed of Alexandria were renting the building formerly owned by John Mills, on half an acre adjacent to the town. 5
Henderson had just been reelected to the Virginia Assembly and he was spending more of his time at his farm, Moore Hill. Robert Fergusson, his Maryland partner, called this his "country paradise," adding that "during the sultry season I would rather be ex- cused from traversing unpleasant paths which lead to it. "6 Henderson's son Archibald, who was to serve more than 50 years in the United States Marine Corps and become its youngest Commandant, was born in Colchester on January 21, 1783.'
Writing on August 29, 1784, to Fergusson in Port Tobacco, Henderson said that the ship Ann was expected soon in Alexandria with a cargo of dry goods and salt from Liverpool or Whitehaven. "The balance of trade between Virginia and Europe I estimate at half a million against Virginia for the year 1784 - I hope you have recovered your health and sold our tobacco." The firm of Henderson, Fergusson & Gibson in 1785 pur- chased lots #47 and 48 in Port Tobacco, formerly the property of John Glassford & Co. Another son was born, at Moore Hill, in December 1784. "On Wednesday," Henderson told Fergusson, "my wife brought the world a son, a hearty stout child - she has been ill but rested tolerably last night." That autumn had been a sickly one.
85
VỊ
Of The Treasurer of Norginia ) in afe with Bayly AStone Inspectors at Colchester Warehouse Com To 2 Dollars a soft rach is ... £ 100. 0.0 Taware house Rent on 845 hhde Jabo Bya Jacon 845 litros Joli shaped fromy 1- Oct ry go to i Och ryge a .S. 253 . 10 .. 0 shop+ from 1 of Octroy90 1. 1 Octroygrandes 6.7. 6 To barish sint to Baltimore to purchasey Iscale Beam and New Weights .J. 28, 0, 0
To disbursements as & Acco4 ... - 9. 3. 11.
To y fp Con 54. 10. 7 . . To Bate de AF Treasurer .. 53. 11. 0
@ Couple of Bayly & Stane
£253.10-
* af ino must hil. ٢
86
Tranfax Sat
0 a) to the Jusquchus & Replaced tothem by Warrant
$ 3. 11 .0 € 128. a "
John Stone made Bath to the above account £81.11.0 Suplus this 12th November 1992 before.
ROSS
1
Figure 16. Accounts of the inspectors of Colchester warehouse with the Treasurer of Virginia, 1792. Virginia State Library.
1790 The Treasurer of Virginia
3.3.14. 9 November To Black smith for adjusting weights
If for now &
0.6.0 Jo Carpen ters for Messig Scales
To 4 for Marking Mons. 0 5.4
" To Books & paper. .
2.8.6
1791
% 2 Papers lich border 3 .. "
3. 4 July To 10 Chalk .. Mandards
. To bringing & Return
2 20.0 Adjust the winghits
3
E & #Bayly Vittone
Figure 17. Detail of disbursements of account referred to in Figure 16. Virginia State Library.
87
"Wherever I go I am surrounded with complaints, and have really been detained at ministering to the distressed. "8
He was still serving as a vestryman of Truro Parish. When that body met at Colchester in February 1784 it received notice of the resignation of a fellow member, General Washington. 9 Stripped of its official standing when the Episcopal Church ceased to be the established religious body in Virginia, the vestry was dissolved the following year. 10
In March 1785, Henderson was appointed as one of four commissioners from Virginia who met with their Maryland counterparts at Mount Vernon to sign the first Potomac River Compact. This agreement between the two states concerned matters of trade, water rights, and currency. It was to remain in force through many years of "oyster wars" between fishermen until a new compact was signed in 1962.11
The Hendersons moved to Dumfries12 about 1787. The once-handsome brick house in that town in which they resided is still standing. Henderson died in 1815 and is buried near Dumfries in the present subdivision of Country Club Lake off Route 234. His obituary said that he had resided in Virginia nearly 60 years, and was "a merchant of the first class" and "always a man of the first respectability." He was "a particular and intimate friend of George Washington" and "a magistrate, repeatedly a member of the Virginia legis- lature, " and always "a real and firm friend to the rights and liberties of his adopted country." Henderson was called the father of the equalization law. "Few men, " concluded the writer, "have rendered more essential services to the state in the capacity of legislator ."13
Some Problems with the Stagecoach
Many years ago an anonymous poet, then staying at Belmont on Mason Neck, had written of the trials of traveling by stagecoach. The company encountered, he declared, could easily have been depicted in Hogarth's etchings, and
If one was sure in each Stage-Coach to meet A company so sociable, so sweet, E'er I would trouble them again with mine. Instead of riding One Mile, I'd walk Nine. 14
In a letter to a friend in England, George Washington spoke of the conditions of travel by stage in 1785:
From the Southern parts of this State, say from Norfolk, thro' Hampton, Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Alexandria which is within a few miles of this place, there is a regular Stage which passes thrice every week, it is neither the best nor the worst of its kind. From Alexandria thro' the Metropolis of of every State .... There is also a regular stage to Portsmouth in New Hampshire ... they pass as often as those first mentioned; so that not more than three intervening days can happen between one stage day and another. A person may therefore, at any time between the first of April and the first of December, travel from Richmond ... to Boston in
88
ten or twelve days; and return in the same time. Between this State and Charleston (So. Carolina) no Stages are yet established 15
Winter travel was less dependable. Alexander Henderson complained, "We are now entirely without money ... it is necessary that a supply be got here from Baltimore immediately and the stage runs now very irregularly:"16 He wrote in February, just a few weeks after an unnerving mishap had taken place in the neighborhood. The Alex- andria paper gave these details:
Tuesday night the stage from Colchester to Dumfries overset in a gully 15 feet deep, smashed the stage in a thousand pieces, and threw the horses on their backs where they continued until three o'clock yesterday morning; the passengers escaped being hurt, and the baggage was saved. 17
Washington frequently took guests from Mount Vernon to Colchester to catch the stage, as he did when James Madison visited him in March 1788.
The line between Baltimore and Richmond left Baltimore at three in the morning and arrived in Colchester before dark. Leaving Colchester at the same time the next day, the passengers had another overnight stop before arriving in Richmond on the third morning. In 1784, Nathan Twining held this franchise, in 1787 John Hoomes took his place. 18 After the route was diverted to Occoquan Nathaniel, Ellicott had the stage and mail contract between Alexandria and Dumfries. In 1809, Ellicott attempted to sell his contract. Three years later his successor put new carriages on the route and changed from alternate days to a daily run. For $3.00 a traveler could ride in the mail stage, which carried only two passengers. This vehicle left Alexandria at 5:00 a.m. and arrived in Fredericksburg the next morning; its return run left Fredericksburg at 3:00 a.m. and reached Alexandria at 3:30 p.m. A larger coach departed from Triplett's Hotel in Fredericksburg at 4:00 a.m. each morning. Twenty-five pounds of luggage per passenger were carried without extra charge. On one trip Alexander Sevier lost a Marine officer's full dress uniform when his trunk was stolen from the baggage rack behind the stagecoach, " cut off a few minutes before day-light" while the coach was under way. 19
The Post Office
In 1773, an official post route was established in Virginia.20 At a meeting of deputy postmaster-generals held on November 24, 1774, a commission was made out for Alexander Henderson, Esq., to be in charge of the mails at Colchester in Virginia. 21 In his survey of the post roads at that time, Hugh Finlay did not cover the territory in Virginia north of Williamsburg. It is probable, however, that mail was carried between Alexandria and Fredericksburg on the King's Highway which passed through Colchester.
A century later a comparison of postal revenues in this part of the state was printed in the Alexandria paper:
89
-
Alexandria
Feb. 1776-June 1778
L63.1653
Colchester
Jan. 1776-June 1778
L11.19.9
Dumfries
Nov. 1776-April 1779
L56.14.5}
Fredericksburg
July, 1777-July, 1778
L62.8.9
Williamsburg produced L329.902 in revenues over this two year period. The returns were reckoned in Virginia currency at six shillings to the dollar and also in that of Pennsylvania, where the exchange was seven shillings, sixpence to the dollar. 22
The first annual report of the Post Office Department in 1790 displays a similar ratio in the business conducted in towns along the Potomac:23
October 1789 to January 1790
Town
Total Rec'd.
Postmaster Salary
Net Revenue
Alexandria
$ 289.90
$ 57.98
$ 266.64
Colchester
7.07
1.42
5.65
Dumfries
86.09
17.30
68.79
The figures for 1791 covered a 12 month period:24
Alexandria
$1,580.00
$316.00
$1,234.00
Colchester
45.00
9.00
36.00
Dumfries
380.00
77.00
298.00
In 1793, there were 195 post offices established along the 5,642 miles of post roads in the United States, usually about 15 miles apart. A single-sheet letter cost 8¢ to send 40 miles. Postage rose on a graduated scale according to distance and double rates were charged for a two page letter.25 Postmasters in Colchester were reported to have been William Thompson (1790-1793), Zachariah Ward (1794-1804), and Samuel Bayly (1804-1813). Peter Wagener served in this capacity in 1811, according to an official list 26 and the last postmaster before the post office was closed in October 1815, was Thomas Morgan. 27 An office was opened at Pohick three years later.28
A chart of the post routes of the United States, printed in Edinburgh in 1812, was found in the museum at Winterthur, Delaware. It shows three stops on the' main post route through Virginia - Alexandria, Colchester, and Williamsburg. Mrs. Robert Duncan, who owns the Fairfax Arms, has a copy of this chart.
The Tannery
The first mention of a tannery came in a letter of George Mason in 1787 giving advice to his son on the use of animal hair in making plaster. "The tanner at Colchester has promised to reserve all he has for you, at the price of one shilling per bushell, contracted for by him last year, which Reintzell has promised he shall do. "29
90
-
In 1790, Joel Beach of Colchester advertised for a tanner and shoemaker, while ten years later one Samuel Hattersley, who described himself as a "Leather Breeches Maker," begged "leave to acquaint the public, that he has got an assortment of LEATHER BREECHES, and Leather dressed in oil, which he warrants equal to any made in London, priced from five to ten dollars a pair. 30
The exact location of the tanyard is not known, but since its operation required the sinking of vats into the ground it is likely that one site would have been used through- out the period that it was active. A deed of 1825 refers to lot #27 as one "commonly called the tanyard lot, "3" which had been owned since 1792 by Peter Coulter. Coulter paid taxes on this lot only from 1817 to 1828, and neither Hattersley, Reintzell or Beach seem to have owned any property in the town. 32
William Huskin, another tanner, did pay tax on one lot from 1796 to 1809 but does not appear in the index to Fairfax County deedbooks. This illustrates a typical situation in the land titles of the town; a general nonchalance seems to have existed regarding such formalities as writing or recording deeds. Many transactions may have been oral agreements. Huskins, in his will, directed his wife Mary to sell the house, lot, and tanyard in Colchester if money were needed to pay his debts. The lot was purchased by Richard Simpson, who paid taxes on it from 1811 to 1816. Simpson, how- ever, did not buy any of the tanning equipment at the sale in 1806 after Huskin's death. Most of the scouring ladles, lime hooks and parcels of leather were purchased by other neighbors. 33
Robert Lindsay, identified as a tanner in the account of the sale, bought most of the tools. The list of his purchases reveals some of the equipment needed:
2 oil jugs
1/6
2 oil piggons
/9
1 scumner 3/4
2 fleshing knives, bark knives
4/3
2 slikers, a smoothing stone and 3 graining cords
1/6
3 shutes
8/5
2 currying boards
1/6
tanbark
9/6
1 cannon stove
22/6
6 oil barrels
3/2
Tanning was a complex operation involving the salting of hides, washing and then soaking them in lime before they were worked and stretched. The hides were next hung in a heated area, dipped again in lime and gone over with a flesher's beam to remove the fat. After being washed and pickled they were then dipped into a tannic acid solu- tion made from oak bark. The final stage was the currying, when the hides were scraped, cleaned, beaten and smoothed. Sometimes the finished leather was colored. 34
These processes required crowding many elements into a small space. An agree- ment made in 1762 by tanner Peter Weir in Alexandria called for his fitting and sinking six tan vats seven feet long, four feet deep and four feet wide, two lime holes, and one
91
water hole of the same dimensions. He was to provide "four handlers or small tan vatts four feet square, a mill house and a stone sufficient to grind the bark, a house over the lime holes and water hole sufficient to work and labor in, and a dwelling house 24 feet by 16 feet with a chimney. "35
A nineteenth century tanyard in the town of Occoquan contained a more elaborate complex of a dwelling, a large currying shop, bark house, beam house and several vats, all of which were on one acre:
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.