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Title: Huntley - A Mason Family Country House
Author: Wrenn, Tony P.
Language: English
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[Illustration: FAIRFAX COUNTY
VIRGINIA
HUNTLEY
SITE LOCATION]
HUNTLEY
A Mason Family Country House
By
Tony P. Wrenn
Published by the Fairfax County Division of Planning
under the direction of the County Board of Supervisors
in cooperation with the County History Commission
Fairfax, Virginia
November 1971
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-183058
Typography by ARVA Printers, Inc.
Printing by ARVA Printers, Inc.
Additional copies available for $1.50 from
Administrative Services, Massey Building
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
List of Illustrations v
Preface vi
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Chapter I. The Mason Family 3
Thomson Francis Mason 3
Chapter II. Huntley and Its Owners 9
Location and Site 9
Owners and Occupants 10
Mason ownership 10
King ownership 13
Harrison-Pierson ownership 15
Harrison ownership 17
Later owners 23
Chapter III. An Architectural Description 27
The Dwelling or Mansion House 27
Room arrangement 27
Windows and doors 29
Interior features 29
Exterior features 31
The Tenant House 31
The Storage House and Necessary 33
The Icehouse 35
The Root Cellar 35
Dairy and Springs 37
Early Structures No Longer Standing 37
Chapter IV. The Architect of Huntley 41
The Architectural Plan 41
Area Architects, circa 1820 42
George Hadfield 42
Similarities to the Work of Hadfield 43
Summary 47
Appendix A Some Mason Houses in Northern Virginia 50
Appendix B Chain of Title 53
List of Sources 55
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure Page
1. Huntley, viewed from southwest, including root cellar and necessary,
1969 viii
2. Huntley house and barn complex, viewed from south, 1947 8
3. Detail, _Map of Eastern Virginia and Vicinity of Washington_, 1862 12
4. Plat of Huntley division, 1868 14
5. Detail, Hopkins, _Atlas of Fifteen Miles around Washington_, 1879 18
6. Rear facade, c. 1890 19
7. Rear facade, c. 1900 20
8. Hindenburg disaster, Lakehurst, New Jersey 22
9. Front view, 1969 26
10. Rear view, 1969 26
11. Mantel, central first floor room, 1969 28
12. Mantel, north room first floor, 1969 28
13. Detail, exterior door, north facade, 1969 30
14. Detail, interior of entrance door, south facade, 1969 30
15. Detail, window and door, central first floor room, 1969 30
16. Necessary and tenant house from the icehouse, 1969 32
17. Necessary, rear or west facade, 1969 32
18. Necessary, door detail, 1969 34
19. Necessary, interior detail, 1969 34
20. Icehouse, detail, dome and opening, 1969 36
21. Icehouse door to root cellar, 1969 36
22. Root cellar entrance to icehouse, 1969 36
23. Dairy and spring house, viewed from southeast, 1969 38
24. Architect George Hadfield's ground plan exhibit at Royal Academy,
1780-82 40
25. Hadfield's design, bed chamber story plan 40
26. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) showing portico designed by
Hadfield 44
27. Analostan, now demolished, possibly Hadfield designed 44
28. Front elevation, Huntley, 1946 47
29. Rear elevation, Huntley, 1946 48
30. Basement floor plan, 1946 48
31. First floor plan, 1946 49
32. Second floor plan, 1946 49
PREFACE
I first visited Huntley in May, 1969 in the company of Edith Sprouse,
Joyce Wilkinson, and Tony Wrenn. Neither I nor anyone else on the staff
of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission had ever seen or heard of
the house, and my Fairfax guides were anxious that their "discovery" be
brought to our attention. Having assumed that anything of interest in
that section of Fairfax County had long been swept away for housing
developments, I was in no way prepared when suddenly we rounded a corner
and looked up to see a curious geometric structure sitting placidly
among its outbuildings against a wooded hillside, aloof from its plebian
neighbors. A quick scanning of composition and details dissipated any
skepticism I may have had: here, on the outskirts of the capital city
was a genuine Federal villa!
After being graciously escorted throughout the house by the owners, we
all agreed that Huntley was, without question, one of Virginia's
undiscovered architectural treasures. Since next to nothing was known
either of its history or the development of its design, we concluded
that the house deserved the most detailed study. All assumed that a
house of such intriguing individuality had to have a story behind it.
Through the far-sighted patronage of the Fairfax County Government and
the meticulous research of Tony Wrenn, this story has now been pieced
together. The text which follows provides a history and descriptive
analysis worthy of this distinguished Virginia landmark.
Calder Loth
Architectural Historian
Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was undertaken at the request of the Fairfax County History
Commission in 1969, when Mrs. William E. Wilkinson was chairman, and in
cooperation with the Fairfax County Division of Planning.
Colonel and Mrs. Ransom Amlong, owners of Huntley and their son Bill
answered the author's numerous questions and gave him free rein to
wander through the house and site. Edith Moore Sprouse provided frequent
research leads and both E. Blaine Cliver, restoration architect, and
Calder Loth, architectural historian with the Virginia Historic
Landmarks Commission, provided architectural analysis. William Edmund
Barrett provided most of the architectural photography. A major source
of material concerning Thomson F. Mason was a collection of his papers,
lent to the Alexandria Library by William Francis Smith for our use.
Other leads were provided by Mrs. Earl Alcorn, Mrs. Sherrard Elliot,
Miss Patricia Carey of the Fairfax County Public Library and Miss
Margaret Calhoun of the Alexandria Library. Mrs. Hugh Cox provided
valuable material on T. F. Mason in Alexandria.
Acknowledgment is also due to those who read and made suggestions
concerning the final draft of this report, among them Dr. John Porter
Bloom, Patricia Williams, John Gott, Mrs. Ross Netherton, Julia Weston,
and several others already named above.
T.P.W.
September, 1971
[Illustration: Figure 1. Huntley, viewed from the southwest, including
root cellar and necessary. November 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
INTRODUCTION
It is difficult to understand how a house whose history is closely
connected to the well-known Mason family has existed, practically
without notice or mention, for one hundred and fifty years. This fact is
all the more puzzling when the structure is as architecturally important
as "Huntley."
Several possible explanations come to mind:
* Though near a major highway, the house is isolated on its
hillside site.
* Because the structure has been somewhat altered, close inspection
is necessary before its architectural merits can be fully
recognized.
* The house was a country or secondary home for a member of the
Mason family who, though important in his own right, was
overshadowed by his more illustrious father, Thomson Mason of
"Hollin Hall", and by his grandfather, George Mason IV of "Gunston
Hall."
* No one has written in detail about the house before and there is
little secondary material available concerning it.
Kate Mason Rowland's _Life of George Mason_, published in 1892,[1] gives
one of the few references to Huntley found by the author in secondary
sources. In an appendix titled "Land described in George Mason's will,
and now owned by his descendent's," she notes:
It was incorrectly stated in one of the earlier volumes that
"Lexington" was the only one of the Mason places in Virginia now in
the family. The writer had overlooked "Okeley" in Fairfax County,
about six miles from Alexandria. The farms of "Okeley" and
"Huntley" were both parts of the estate bequeathed by George Mason
to his son Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall." A double ditch[50] is
still to be seen on the southern border of these two places,
extending several miles from East to West, with a broad space about
thirty feet wide separating the two ditches. These mark the line
between the lands of George Mason and George Washington, as they
were in the lives of those gentlemen. In General Washington's will
he refers "to the back line or outer boundary of the tract between
Thomson Mason and myself ... now double ditching with a
post-and-rail fence thereon," etc. And he mentions in another place
"the new double ditch" in connection with the boundary line between
"Mt. Vernon" and the Mason property. In adding to his estate he had
purchased land at one time from George Mason. And among the
Washington papers preserved in the Lewis and Washington families,
and recently sold to autograph collectors, are three letters of
George Mason, on the subject of the bounds between the Washington
and Mason plantations, one written in 1768, the others in 1769.
Washington adds a memorandum to the former, saying that "the lines
to which this letter has reference were settled by and between
Colonel Mason and myself the 19th of April, 1769, as will appear
... by a survey thereof made on that day in his presence, and with
his approbation." "Huntley" owned by Judge Thomson F. Mason of
"Colross," son of Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall," passed out of the
family some years ago ...
Another mention is in Edith Moore Sprouse's _Potomac Sampler_, published
in 1961.[2] She identifies Huntley as "a part of the estate of George
Mason of Gunston Hall ... on a tract of land which bordered Washington's
on the north and stretched from the Potomac to Kings Highway."
The following study of the Huntley complex combines the work of
architects, architectural historians and historians in reading and
interpreting the structures. At some future date, efforts of
archaeologists will probably be rewarded with further information about
the complex at various stages of development.
Introduction Notes
[Footnote 1: Kate Mason Rowland, =The Life of George Mason= (New York:
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1892), p. 472]
[Footnote 2: Edith Moore Sprouse, =Potomac Sampler= (Alexandria:
privately printed, 1961).]
CHAPTER I
THE MASON FAMILY
The first George Mason came to Virginia during the middle of the
seventeenth century.[3] Two other Georges followed before 1725, when the
fourth George Mason, "The Pen of the Revolution," was born. Movement of
the Mason family had been gradually northward, from Norfolk, then to
Stafford and Prince William Counties in Virginia, across the Potomac
River to Charles County, Maryland, and then back to Fairfax County in
Virginia where, in 1758, George Mason IV built Gunston Hall.
The builder of Gunston Hall was later the author of the Fairfax
Resolves, of the first Constitution of Virginia and of the Virginia
Declaration of Rights. His Declaration of Rights, which was adopted by
the Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg on June 12, 1776, was
the major source for the Federal Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791. Though
a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mason refused to
sign the Constitution because it did not provide for the abolition of
slavery, nor did it, in his views, sufficiently safeguard the rights of
the individual.[4]
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other early American leaders
were friends of George Mason and Mason's family surely met many of them
at Gunston Hall. Jefferson, who called George Mason "the wisest man of
his generation," was his last recorded visitor at Gunston Hall, on
September 30, 1792.[5] On October 7, one week later, Mason died.
Nine of his children married. On December 17, 1788, George wrote to his
son John that "Your brother Thomson and his family have just moved from
Gunston to his own seat at Hollin Hall."
A tutor of General Thomson Mason's family, Elijah Fletcher, wrote in a
letter from Alexandria, August 4, 1810:
[General Mason is] ... a man of note and respectability, his family
very agreeable, social, affable and easy. I use as much freedom in
the family as I did at my fathers house. I doubt not of their
kindness to me in health or sickness. My employment is respectable
and I consider my standing upon a par and equality with most of the
people. Our living is rich and what in Vermont would be called
extravagant. The family rise very late in the morning and
consequently do not have breakfast till eight or nine. Our dinner
at three and tea at eight in the evening.[6]
General Thomson Mason served as an officer of militia in the American
Revolution, held numerous state and local offices and was active in
organizing banks and transportation companies before his death in 1820.
It was his son, Thomson Francis Mason, born in 1785 at Gunston Hall, who
built "Huntley."
Thomson Francis Mason
Thomson Francis Mason was heir to a family tradition of important
friendships, public service and good taste, and he carried on this
tradition. Educated at Princeton, Class of 1807,[7] he chose to return
to the Fairfax County area to practice law and enter public service.
His life story is difficult to trace. No biography exists, nor is he
mentioned in most works concerning Alexandria, even though he later
attained significant recognition there.
On November 24, 1817, the _Alexandria Gazette_ announced the marriage,
on Wednesday evening, November 19th of:
Thomson F. Mason, Esq., of this place, to Miss Elizabeth C. Price
of Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia....
The young Mrs. Mason was familiarly known as Eliza Clapham Price, not as
Elizabeth C., but Thomson F. called her Betsey.
The use of the phrase "of this place" is of interest here, and open to
several interpretations. It could mean that he was living in Alexandria
at the time or only that he had an office there. He could have been
living in Alexandria and building a home in Fairfax County at the same
time.
Mason was probably already a practicing lawyer at the time of his
marriage and was by 1824 a man of consequence in Alexandria.
The fight to get out of the District began in 1824, while it was
not settled by Congress until 1846. The citizens of Alexandria,
becoming tired of being in the District of Columbia, made an
attempt to have Alexandria receded to Virginia. A meeting was held
March 9, 1824, for the purpose of preparing a memorial to Congress
on the subject. S. Thompson Mason was Chairman of the
meeting....[8]
The memorial sent to Congress was couched in legal enough terms to have
been drafted by Mason, who later became a judge. His political
activities gave him enough local standing to insure his election as
Mayor of Alexandria in 1827 and again in 1836.[9]
A glimpse of Mason as a family man can be seen in a reply to a letter
from his wife in which she complained of an exchange of words with
Huntley's overseer (in 1828), Slighter Smith. Mason, who must have been
in court at Leesburg, wrote:
I have been indeed a little surprised at hearing the conduct of Mr.
Smith. Altho' I knew about the general unkind and bad temper which
he possessed, I had no idea that he would have ventured to exhibit
it in your presence--or have him guilty of the insolence of
threatening violence in your presence and to one under your
protection.... I still cannot believe that he would seriously
attempt it....
In that same letter Mason noted:
... the great pleasure and pride I have ever felt in seeing you
placed above the flame, and having you so looked up to by
others.[10]
As a good plantation manager, he also included a note to Smith informing
him of his surprise and displeasure at the outbreak and suggesting:
I feel it is proper to inform you that I shall feel it my duty to
inquire strictly into this subject--And with regard to the
threatened violence I beg leave ... to put you on your guard and to
inform you that any new attempt will be followed by the most
serious consequences.
Mason lived in several houses in Alexandria (see Appendix A), but it was
the time he spent at Colross which seems to have received the most
notice. Mrs. Marian Gouverneur wrote in her book, _As I Remember_:
Another Virginia family of social prominence, whose members mingled
much in Washington Society, while I was still visiting the Winfield
Scotts, was that of the Masons of "Colross," the name of their old
homestead near Alexandria in Virginia. Mrs. Thomson F. Mason was
usually called Mrs. "Colross" Mason to distinguish her from another
family by the same name, that of James M. Mason, United States
Senator from Virginia. The family thought nothing of the drive to
Washington and no entertainment was quite complete without the
"Mason girls," who were especially bright and attractive young
women. Open house was kept at this delightful country seat, and
many were the pleasant parties given there....[11]
Indeed the Mason occupancy of Colross made such an impression, that for
years afterward the house was known as "The Mason Mansion." During the
Civil War, on October 12, 1864, the _Alexandria Gazette_, in reporting
the military occupation of the town, carried the following item on
Colross:
... The fine old Mason mansion, in the suburbs of the town, was
hired by an army officer.... The Mason mansion ... is a fair type
of the residence of a wealthy Virginian. A wide hall in the centre
opens into various rooms, while the front entrance is approached
through a pleasant courtyard. At the rear of the house is a
spacious area, paved with marble in diamond shaped blocks, looking
out upon a large garden, well shaded with fruit trees and
surrounded by a heavy brick wall. At one corner of this garden is
the family tomb, in which are the remains of old Judge Mason, the
former owner of the estate, who died just before the war broke out.
He was a near relative of the present Confederate Commissioner to
England, and his widow now resides at Point of Rocks....
Colross remained in the Mason family until the 1880's, Mrs. Betty Carter
Smoot, Alexandria historian, who lived at Colross, wrote in 1934, of the
house and family:
Jonathan Swift and his wife, and the Masons, who for many years
resided at Colross, are said to have lived in great style and
elegance. As regarded the Masons, there were still some evidences
of this when we went there. Although pretty well denuded of its
furnishings, there were one or two fine old mahogany pieces which
had not been removed, and some handsome mirrors, with gilded
frames, of a size appropriate to the surroundings. In the garret
was stored quantities of china, remains of dinner sets, some in
white and gold and others in blue willow pattern. There were some
beautiful old cut glass decanters, wine glasses, and goblets. I
remember also some vases and other bric-a-brac. Much of this was
mutilated, but it furnished a fair sample of the style of living
maintained in palmy days of the past. These belongings of the
Masons were all packed, under the supervision of a daughter of the
family, Miss Caroline Mason, and disposed of by her.[12]
When Thomson F. Mason died on December 21, 1838, his obituary in the
_Alexandria Gazette_ ran two full columns.[13] It was noted that Mason,
who was a Judge of the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia at the
time of his death, had:
... graduated at Princeton with the highest honors of that
institution ... studied law and practiced with much success and
celebrity, until he was elevated by the Executive of the United
States to that Station on the Bench, which he filled with such
ability at the time of his decease ... his services were eminently
valuable not only in the character of Chief Magistrate of their
City (Alexandria), the duties of which he discharged for many
years, but in all their public undertakings....
That same issue of the _Gazette_ carried resolutions of the Common
Council of Alexandria decreeing that they would:
... attend his funeral, and will wear crape on the left arm for one
month.... That, as a further mark of respect, and to evince the
sense of his community of their loss, the great bell in the public
building be tolled on Sunday next, from 1 o'clock P.M., till half
past 4 P.M....
Members of the Bar and Officers of the Courts of Alexandria County voted
to:
... attend his funeral ... and wear the usual badge of mourning for
thirty days ... that a committee of three be appointed respectively
to tender them [family] our condolence ... that the proceeding of
the meeting be published in the _Alexandria Gazette_....
The Bar and Officers of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia
voted to:
... attend his funeral, and, during the residue of the term, wear
the usual badges of mourning ... that the Chairman [Francis Scott
Key] with Richard Coxe and Alexander Hunter, Esqrs., be a Committee
to tender to the family of the deceased the sympathy of this
meeting at the death of one endeared to us by long acquaintance,
which has made known the character of the deceased as one deserving
of our warmest personal regard and highest respect, and which
rendered this event a great public loss, as well as a private
affliction....
T. F. Mason had been appointed to the newly organized Criminal Court of
the District of Columbia less than six months before his death. He was
the first judge appointed to that court, and its only judge during its
formative period. As a Justice of Peace he had received his first
appointment in February 1828, and was reappointed in 1833, and 1838.[14]
The story of Mason's life presented here is only a partial one but it is
included to show something of the type of man who built Huntley.[15]
Chapter 1 Notes
[Footnote 3: Stevens Thompson Mason, =Mason Family Chart= (Baltimore:
privately printed, 1907). All genealogical material is taken either from
this chart or from Kate Mason Rowland, =The Life of George Mason=.]
[Footnote 4: Rowland, =George Mason=, p. 365.]
[Footnote 5: =Ibid.=]
[Footnote 6: =Ibid.=, p. 307; The Letters of Elijah Fletcher, ed. by
=Martha von Briesen=, (University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville,
1965), p. 8.]
[Footnote 7: Princeton Alumni Association, Princeton University]
[Footnote 8: Mary G. Powell, =The History of Old Alexandria Virginia=,
(Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1928), p. 324. In her list of the Mayors
of Alexandria Mrs. Powell also lists T.F. Mason incorrectly as S.
Thomson (sic) Mason, although she spells the name without a "p" there.]
[Footnote 9: William F. Carne, =Alexandria Business Book= (Alexandria:
M. Hill Co., 1897).]
[Footnote 10: Thomson Francis Mason Papers, 1820-38, Collection of
William Francis Smith, Alexandria, Virginia.]
[Footnote 11: Marian Gouverneur, =As I Remember= (New York: D. Appleton
& Company, 1911), p. 212.]
[Footnote 12: Mrs. Betty Carter Smoot, =Days in an Old Town=
(Alexandria: privately printed, 1934), p. 127. Colross was moved to
Princeton, N.J., in 1929. According to a clipping in the Gunston Hall
archives, which is undated and unidentified, it moved in "... a grand
total of 16 carloads of brick, wood, marble, etc...."]
[Footnote 13: =Alexandria Gazette.= December 27, 1838.]
[Footnote 14: Noel F. Regis, "Some Notable Suits in Early District
Courts," =Records of the Columbia Historical Society=. Volume 24 (1922),
68, and Charles S. Bundy, "History of the Office of Justice of the
Peace," Volume 5 (1902), 278.]
[Footnote 15: Additional information may be found in the Thomson Francis
Mason Papers, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, Accession #1146.
Also Gunston Hall Library, Gunston Hall, Lorton, Virginia.]
[Illustration: Figure 2. Huntley house and barn complex, viewed from the
south. 1947. Photo by Bill Amlong, copy by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
CHAPTER II
HUNTLEY AND ITS OWNERS
Location and Site
Huntley, 6918 Harrison Lane, near Woodlawn Plantation, Fairfax County,
Virginia, is currently owned by Colonel and Mrs. Ransom G. Amlong. It is
located off the Jefferson Davis Highway (U.S. Route 1), in the Groveton
community, on Harrison Lane, between Lockheed Boulevard and Kings
Highway (Route 633).
The house is on a plateau, overlooking Hybla Valley, at 150 feet above
sea level. To the south, or in front of the house, the ground level
drops in three terraces to 130 feet above sea level. To the north or
rear there is a sharp rise to 200 feet.
A church and several houses are located directly in front of Huntley,
but the vista from the house toward the Potomac River, especially in
summer, is relatively undisturbed. The general area is one of intense
commercial and residential development. Hybla Valley, through which
Barnyard Creek flows from Huntley, constitutes the major part of the
view from the house, and much of this land is owned by the U.S.
Government.
The Huntley complex consists of:
1. The mansion house.
2. Necessary with flanking storage rooms.
3. Root cellar.
4. Ice house.
5. Spring house.
6. Tenant house.
All the buildings are brick. The house itself is a significant Federal
period structure, built during the ownership of Thomson F. Mason, c.
1820, and believed to have been influenced by George Hadfield, architect
of Washington's first City Hall and first superintendent of the
Capitol's construction.
Origin of the Name
The first known use of "Huntley" as a place name for the Harrison Lane
house appears in an 1859 deed of the property by Betsey C. Mason, widow
of T.F. Mason, to her sons John Francis and A. Pendleton Mason. The
property is described as:
... all that certain tract of land in the County of Fairfax and
state of Virginia called "Huntley" and containing about one
thousand acres....[16]
It is probable that the plantation was named Huntley before Thomson F.
Mason died in 1838, although his will of that year mentions no real
estate, or personal property specifically.
If he followed the Mason tradition, the house may have been named after
an ancestral home in England, and probably after the home of a maternal
ancestor. In writing of Gunston Hall, Helen Hill Miller says:
They called their home "Gunston Hall." The name had come down
through several generations of Mason's maternal ancestry: his
grandmother was Mary Fowke of Gunston Hall in Charles County,
Maryland, and her grandfather was the Gerald Fowke of Gunston Hall
in Staffordshire who emigrated to Virginia at the same time as the
first George Mason. The habit of naming new homes in America after
the old ones in England was general among the planters of the
Virginia Tidewater. Mason conformed to this tradition for a second
time when he made a gift of a nearby plantation to his son Thomson
and called it "Hollin Hall," after the home of his mother's people
near Ripon....[17]
If Thomson F. Mason had followed the same procedure he could have used
the name "Huntley," which might at any point have had an "e" added. His
father was General Thomson Mason of Hollin Hall, who was married to
Sarah McCarty Chichester.[18] Sarah was the daughter of Richard McCarty
Chichester, whose first wife had been Ann Gordon.[19] The ancestral
Gordon home in Scotland was called "Huntley."
In these lands of Strathbogie Sir Adam (Adam the V) fixed his
residence, and was the first of the Gordons who removed from the
south of Scotland to the North. He obtained from the parliament
holden at Perth anno 1311, that his new estate should be called
_Huntley_, as it is still called in writings and public
instruments, altho' amongst the vulgar it retains the old name of
Strathbogie.[20]
OWNERS AND OCCUPANTS
Mason Ownership
The will of General Thomson Mason of Hollin Hall was written on April
15, 1797, and probated, after his death, on November 21, 1820.[21] That
will does not specifically mention real estate, but does:
... give and devise unto my Son Thomason Mason my gold watch and I
confirm unto him his right and title to a mulatto boy named Bill,
given him by his Grandfather Mr. Richard Chichester and I also give
and devise unto him my interest in the Potomack Company....
One reason no real estate is specifically mentioned may be cleared up by
a later deed (1823)[22] in which other heirs of General Mason deed to:
Thomson F. Mason of the Town of Alexandria in the District of
Columbia, ... a certain tract of land situate in the County of
Fairfax and State of Virginia known and called by the name of
Hunting Creek Farm....
This deed reaffirms settlements made by General Mason during his
lifetime on January 1, 1817, and includes the land on which Huntley is
located.
Thomson F. could have begun Huntley at any time after January 1, 1817.
On the 29th of January 1818, he paid Alexander Baggett $37.79-1/2 for,
among other things:
40 Ft. Double Architrave
18 Ft. Jamb lining
1 Carpet strip
2 pr hinges put on
1 mortice lock put on
2 Flush Bolts
135 Ft 4/4 clear boards
locks, hinges, bolts, nails, and Springs....[23]
Also included is one item labeled "folding doors" (double doors). No
double doors have been located at Huntley, although Mason is not known
to have been building elsewhere at this period. During the latter part
of 1819 he was still building and paid $28.00 for:
Sept 20--20 bushels plaster
Sept 22--20 bushels plaster
Oct 10--10 bushels plaster....[24]
There was probably a structure at Huntley by 1823, for in February of
that year Mason sent "to his farm by surry ten bushels shoots and six
bran...."[25]
By 1826 the house must have been substantially finished, for in that
year Mason's Grandmother Chichester wanted:
to spend a few days at Mr. T.F. Mason's farm, but was deterred from
doing so by the apprehension that, as Mr. Mason resided in Town,
and there was no other white person on the farm but the overseer
... she would not be secure.[26]
By implication there was a dwelling at Huntley ready for her occupancy.
Another letter written to Mason on August 18, 1827, now incomplete and
in poor condition, suggests finishing some construction work and notes
that the writer, whose name is missing:
... had understood you had only rented the place by the month, tho
the man has a little crop on the land growing and if the season
proves good at the end of the year may be worth ... [the rest is
missing][27]
Almost a year later the _Alexandria Gazette_, on Thursday morning August
5, 1828, had an advertisement offering:
$25 Reward/ran away from the farm of Thompson F. Mason/Fairfax
County on the night of 2d instant negro/BOB. He is about 6 feet
high, stout made, very black/and about 45 years of age; has a
stammering in his/speech; his right leg sore. Had on when he
eloped,/brown linen shirt and trowsers and took with him/blue coat,
white linsey trowsers, and black fur hat-/I will give $10 for
taking him so I get him again if in the County. If taken out of the
County/or District of Columbia, $25./Slighter Smith, Agent for
Thompson F. Mason/Fairfax County, State of Virginia/August 5.
Mr. Smith had been replaced as Overseer at Huntley by 1832 for in that
year Price Skinner wrote:
... being moved to your house last friday--we are in a bad fix--I
want you if you please to ride out to see what you will have
don--if I was you I wood have the floor layed down with the plank
not used--the whole of the cappenders work may be made in less than
one day--and I ast John Parsons what the cappenders work wood be
worth--he said about fourty dollars--and forty cents I believe wood
be anough there is but three suns [?] worth--to lay the floor and
weather bord the shed Sir you will please to ride out....[28]
Mason had already acquired Colross, in Alexandria (see Appendix A.), by
1833, for in March of that year an estimate was submitted by Thos. Beale
for:
Labour and Materials, for repairs on the large Building North of
the Town of Alexandria....
The estimate included plastering, painting, brickwork, erection of
porches and porticos, and fencing of the property.[29] It is Colross
with which Thomson F. Mason's name is normally linked. He died December
21, 1838, and was buried there.
[Illustration: Figure 3. Detail from =Map of Eastern Virginia and
Vicinity of Washington=, Arlington, January 1, 1862, Bureau of
Topographic Engineers, Record Group 77, National Archives. Copy by
Stuart C. Schwartz.]
His will was probated on February 4, 1839,[30] with Mrs. Mason as
executrix, though it was not recorded until February 18, 1839.[31] Seven
days before his death Mason had written in his will:
... I devise all my estate real and personal in possession
remainder or reversion or in expectancy to my beloved wife B.C.M.
for her maintenance and support of our children during her life and
widowhood.... For any aid or assistance which my wife may require
in the management of my estate, I recommend her to my brother
Richard C. Mason, and my most excellent friends Benjamin King and
Bernard Hooe....
Though Thomson F. Mason had built Huntley, it never served as his
permanent residence. It was occupied by a succession of renters,
overseers and farmers. Mason's "excellent friend Benjamin King," a
doctor, was to have a more personal connection with Huntley, however.
King Ownership
In November of 1859, Betsey C. Mason, having been authorized:
... by deed or will, to dispose of all or any part of his estate to
their children or any of them, at such times and in such
proportions as she may think just and prudent, and whereas, the
said Betsey C. Mason deems if just and prudent to dispose of a
portion of said estate to her said sons [John Francis and A.
Pendleton] ... all that certain tract of land in the County of
Fairfax and state of Virginia called "Huntley" and containing about
one thousand acres....[32]
At the same time Mrs. Mason transferred to her two sons:
... eighty five negroes, slaves for life, which said negroes are
particularly mentioned and set forth in the scheduled annexes to
this deed ... Daniel Humphreys and his wife Rachel and their son
Daniel, now living at Huntley ... and Priscilla, their daughter and
her child named Thomas, the last two being at Huntley ... Sandy
living at Huntley....[33]
Of the 85 more than six may have lived at Huntley, but only these six
are specified.
Exactly one month later, the two Mason boys, being:
... justly indebted to the said Benjamin King the just sum of
thirteen thousand dollars, lawful money of the United States, to be
paid to the said Benjamin King on the first day of January one
thousand eight hundred and sixty two....
transferred as security for a debt to John A. Smith:
... that certain tract or parcel of land ... known and commonly
called Huntley ... containing one thousand acres, more or less ...
together with all and singular its appurtenances ... for the
following purposes and none other, that is to say to permit the
said John Francis Mason and Arthur Pendleton Mason, their heirs or
assigns to retain possession of the said tract or land, without
account of rents or profits, until a sale become necessary under
this deed and if the said John Francis and Arthur Pendleton Mason,
shall fail to pay the sum of thirteen thousand dollars, as the same
shall become due according to the conditions of the said bond ...
the said John A. Smith shall upon the request of the said parties
entitled to said payment proceed to sell at public auction, to the
highest bidder for cash, the said tract or parcel of land or as
much thereof as may be necessary ... after having given at least 30
days notice of the time and place of sale in some newspaper printed
in the town of Alexandria....[34]
[Illustration: Figure 4. Survey, Huntley, prior to May 15, 1868. Fairfax
County Deed Book 1-4, p. 240. Copy by Stuart C. Schwartz.]
There the ownership remained until the Civil War. A map of that era
(1862) shows "Huntley Pl--Mrs. Mason's". The overview is labelled "Wide
fertile Valley with but little Timber."[35] This map also labels Kings
Highway the "Gravel Road," a term used in many of the Huntley deeds.
Why the Masons became indebted to Benjamin King is not known, but on
June 12, 1862, the property was transferred from Smith to King.
According to the deed they did:
... advertise the said property in the Alexandria News, a paper
published in the City of Alexandria, for upwards of thirty days for
sale at public auction and wheras pursuant to said advertisement
the said John A. Smith did on Thursday, the 12th day of June, 1862,
at 12 o'clock a.m. in front of the Mayor's office in the City of
Alexandria, offer at public sale to the highest bidder ... several
bids having been made therefor, the said property was struck off to
Benjamin King at and for the sum of thirteen thousand dollars ...
that certain tract of land known as "Huntley" ... together with all
and singular the appurtenances thereto....[36]
As nearly as can be determined no _Alexandria News_ was being published
at the time, and the property was not advertised in the _Gazette_. The
transaction was noted in its "Local News";
... the property known as "Huntley" in Fairfax County, containing
about 1,000 acres, was sold today at public auction by John A.
Smith, esq., Trustee. It was subject to a lien of about $10,000,
and was purchased by Dr. Benjamin King, subject to said lien, for
$13,000 cash.[37]
Evidently King either already had moved to Huntley, or did at that time.
He next appeared in the _Gazette_ when he was leaving the property in
1868.
For sale on Tuesday the 19th instant at 10 o'clock a.m. at
"Huntley" the residence of Doctor B. King, all his HOUSEHOLD and
KITCHEN FURNITURE consisting of sideboard, chairs, tables,
bedsteads, bureaus and glasses, wash stands, toilet sets, and c.
Also stock and farming utensils, horses, cows, plows, harrows, corn
cob and crushers, horse power and threshers, cauldron, kettles, and
c. with all articles usually found on a farm. Terms at sale, my
11--1 w.[38]
Harrison-Pierson Ownership
Dr. King sold Huntley to Albert W. Harrison and Nathan W. Pierson of New
Jersey. The instrument of sale provided:
... the tract hereby conveyed containing eight hundred and ninety
and one half acres, more or less, known as and commonly called
"Huntley"....[39]
The deed more specifically noted that the courses in this deed had been
so changed as:
... to make them conform to the ancient surveys of the land, and
being the same land which was surveyed by George and others to
Thomson F. Mason, by deed dated October 1st, eighteen hundred and
twenty three ...
Accompanying the deed was a survey which was accomplished for Dr. King
by Thomas W. Carter, "formerly surveyor, Prince William County." The
survey was received by the County Clerk on May 15, 1868. The "Gravel
Road" was shown as running north of the "Mansion House," and the "South
Branch Little Hunting Creek" east of the house. The Huntley part of the
purchase was shown as a plot of land with 682 acres, 0 rods and 30
poles, containing the "Mansion House."
The "Journal of Records of Huntley Farm," covering the period between
1868-89, is currently in the possession of Mrs. Earl Alcorn of
Alexandria. It details the purchase, subsequent division between Pierson
and Harrison, payment of liens, etc., on Huntley. The Journal indicates
that the farm was actually purchased on March 1, 1868. Dr. King was
probably given time to settle his affairs, as the transfer was not
recorded until November of that year. At any rate, the Journal entry for
March 1, 1868, reads:
956 acres at $32.50 per acre 31,070.00
Paid down each $5,000 10,000.00
---------
21,070.00
The Harrisons obviously entered into community affairs, for by May 1870:
The regular monthly meeting of the Woodlawn Farmers' Club was held
on Saturday last pursuant to adjournment at Huntley, the residence
of A.W. Harrison. The President being absent, Courtland Lukens was
appointed Chairman pro tem. Twenty four members were present.
Theron Thompson was admitted as a member. The report of the
committee on vegetables and a supplement for March last was called
for, again read, and discussed at some length. The committee on
cereals presented their report on the condition of things about the
farm and premises of Huntley, which was a good one and rather
commendatory of Mr. Harrison as a practical farmer, and elicited
several pertinent questions and answers. Some discussion ensued as
to the best method of ridding farms of garlic. E. E. Mason produced
several "pips" taken dexterously with the thumb nail from under the
tongue of young chickens. The "pip" is a little boney substance
similar to a fish scale, a negative of the tongue, and prevents the
chick from eating unless it is removed. A conversational style of
discussion ensured on the subject of poultry. An invitation to
supper, as usual, was unanimously accepted without debate. The club
then adjourned to meet one month hence at Edward Daniels' [Gunston
Hall].[40]
In the 1870 census Harrison was recorded as being 36 years old, having
four daughters, real estate worth $28,000 and personal property worth
$8,000.[41]
Harrison became a well known citizen. The _Alexandria Gazette_ reported
on March 3, 1870, that "Mr. Harrison's horses ran away," causing great
excitement in the city.
Harrison Ownership
Pierson and Harrison divided the Huntley tract on March 11, 1871,[42]
and by the time the Hopkins _Atlas_ was published in 1879, the house was
listed clearly as "A.W. Harrison, 'Huntley'."[43]
In 1875 "A.F.B.", evidently a correspondent for the _Syracuse_ (N.Y.)
_Journal_, visited Huntley, and on July 25th filed a dispatch to the
_Journal_. The story indicated much about life at Huntley during the
era, including the marks left by the Civil War and the life of the
Northerners who had moved to the South:
To come to Huntley you take the steamer from Washington to
Alexandria. The cars run hourly or nearly so, but the river ride is
more pleasant. If you have been to Alexandria at any time since the
century opened, you will recognize the place. Many things change in
three score years and fifteen, but Alexandria is not one of them.
It is the same yesterday and today. Your hospitable friends at
Huntley will meet you on the wharf, and you shall have a charming
ride through the Fairfax fair fields for four miles, until you
reach the Old Dominion plantation of Judge Mason. It joins on the
south Mt. Vernon, which is plainly visible from the ancient family
residence of the Masons, now the home of an enterprising eastern
gentleman, who has a fondness for agriculture on a grand scale. The
house stands boldly on a hill spur, looking over broad acres of
corn, rye, wheat, oats, and fertile meadows--a sight to see.
Beyond, in plain vision, rolls the Potomac. Vessels of many
kinds--by sail and by steam--are going to and from the city of
Washington.... We took a walk today over the great farm. I dare not
say how many were the acres of corn standing eleven and twelve feet
high, with tasseled ears. Our host had us through the meadows,
going like Boaz of old among his men. He speaks well of the
ex-slaves, and of their service. Among them I met a Washington and
an Andrew Jackson....
As we walked on into shady woods we came upon an old encampment of
our Union Forces in the war. If fruit and berries were as abundant
then as now, the boys in blue had a good time in their season. Nor
could the weather have been peculiarly trying. At night we get the
west winds from off the Alleghanies, and at times the delicious
coolness of the sea-side is rivaled. I counted as many as thirty
open graves here from which the forms of those who had been buried
had been taken away. Trees are growing in the places of the tents,
and time is fast sweeping away the marks of war.
The Southern people are not considered by these northern farmers
especially unfriendly. There is little social intercourse, however,
because the women got so thoroughly mad, that they will never get
over it in this world.... Nevertheless, there is such a sprinkling
of Yankees in these parts that life here has its social
attractions.
The farmers' clubs meet statedly to picnic, to discuss, and to
prove that the lines have fallen to them in pleasant places. And a
better home for a farmer can scarcely be imagined. The winter is
short; the spring early; the summer not oppressive, and the autumn
continuous, rich and glorious. The people catch the inspiration and
are "given to hospitality." One could do much worse than to live at
Huntley. As for us, we are coming again.
[Illustration: Figure 5. Detail, G.M. Hopkins, =Atlas of Fifteen Miles
Around Washington=, Philadelphia, 1879. p. 71.]
[Illustration: Figure 6. Rear facade, c. 1890. Courtesy Mrs. Ransom
Amlong. Copy by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 7. Rear facade, c. 1900; Courtesy Mrs. Earl
Alcorn. Copy by Stuart C. Schwartz.]
In May, 1892, the _Gazette_ reported another meeting of the Woodlawn
Farmers' Club at Huntley, though the column was a little garble, noting
that the Club:
... met at Huntley, the residence of Mrs. Pierson.... The farm of
our hostess consists of about 300 acres and is part of the estate
formerly owned by Mrs. Thomson Mason. A new cottage has been built
overlooking a fertile valley, and giving a fine prospect including
the Potomac River, Mt. Vernon, Woodlawn and Belvoir estates and is
carried on by Harry Pierson, son of our former President.[44]
The Pierson House may be the structure directly across Harrison Lane
from Huntley. It has the same outlook and general location as Huntley,
and is located on part of the original Huntley tract.
Albert W. Harrison, to whom Huntley had passed in 1868, died in 1911.
The _Gazette_ noted that:
Mr. Albert W. Harrison, an old, well known and esteemed resident of
Fairfax County, died at his home "Huntley" in the Woodlawn
neighborhood at 7:30 o'clock last night. The deceased was 80 years
old. He leaves four children, a son and three daughters. Mr.
Harrison was a native of Montclair, New Jersey, but moved to
Fairfax County in 1869. His frequent visits to this city for more
than forty years made him as well known in Alexandria as any
resident of the City. Mr. Harrison was a member of the Second
Presbyterian Church. His funeral will take place Saturday afternoon
at the residence. The interment will be in Alexandria.[45]
On April 5, 1911 the married daughter, Margaret N. Harrison Gibbs, and
her husband J. Norman Gibbs, deeded:
... all of their right, title and interest, legal and equitable in
and to the personal estate of said Albert W. Harrison, deceased,
except his watch, and also to hold as tenants in common, the
following described tract of land containing three hundred fifty
eight and three quarters (358 3/4) being part of "Huntley" so
called and known ...[46]
to Clara B. Harrison, unmarried; Mary C. Harrison, unmarried, and Albert
R. Harrison, unmarried. The part of the Huntley tract transferred
contained the house.
For the next 19 years neither the Harrisons nor Huntley seem to have
made the news. Then in 1930, a full page _Alexandria Gazette_ article
appeared entitled "Nation's Greatest Air Center."[47] The rest of the
headline read:
George Washington Air Junction Tract Found Ideal for Trans-Atlantic
Terminal for Airships of Zeppelin and R-101 types without
Interfering with Thousand-Acre Airport for Planes--Admiral Chester
Shows That Historic Ancestral Lands of George Washington and George
Mason, First Selected by War Department 12 Years Ago for Army
Aviation Field, Afford Only Tract Ideal for Great National Air
Center.
The "only ideal tract" was the valley in front of Huntley. Admiral
Chester was reported as saying that the War Department in 1916-17, made
an investigation:
... of all possible sites for an Army Aviation field near
Washington, and found that the Air Junction site was the only ideal
site for a large air center.
[Illustration: Figure 8. Hindenburg disaster, Lakehurst, New Jersey, May
6, 1937. Photo published in =New York Times=, National Archives print.]
Public Relations men for the Air Junction certainly used local history
as a promotional gimmick:
It will be a twentieth century aeronautic, scientific and historic
center, but retaining the gorgeous 18th Century pastoral setting,
including beautiful groves that teem with birdlife ... a dozen
bubbling springs that have been making for centuries the sparkling
Little Hunting Creek and Dogue Creek.... There are many other
alluring surprises that one would not dream of finding within only
nine miles from the Capital, such as Mason's poetic "Huntley," a
gem of colonial architecture, surrounded by stately trees. George
Mason's "Huntley" and "Okeley" are both part of the George
Washington Air Junction. These estates ... had been forgotten, due
to the lack of signs on the Washington-Richmond Highway to make
known that a modest lane led to them. The lane has now been widened
into a 50 foot gravel road and has become the entrance to the Air
Junction.
As the visitors drive into the Junction, past the historic Little
Hunting Creek, about 3,000 feet westward, they behold "Huntley," a
gem of colonial architecture, which graces one of the hills on the
north side of the Washington Air Junction Drive and overlooks the
Thousand Acres Airport. It is surrounded by stately trees, and its
sides are screened by vines and picturesque thick bushes of lilacs,
roses and other flowers.
"May I carry it away?" is the usual query from visitors, as from
the distance "Huntley" looks small enough to carry away. Failing to
obtain permission to remove this colonial gem, the visitors feel
happy in being photographed on the quaint porch and steps....
The writer had apparently convinced himself of at least one thing, for
under the photograph of Huntley, which accompanies the article, the
house is again called "a gem of colonial architecture."
Air Junction promoters invited the Graf Zeppelin and subsequent airships
to make their base here rather than at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The same
invitation went to the British and to others, but the accidental burning
of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst on May 6, 1937, seems to have put an end
to dreams of a great airship junction at Huntley, though there was an
operative airport there. Such names as Lockheed Boulevard, Fairchild
Drive, Piper Lane, Beechcraft Drive and Fordson Road still survive.
Later Owners
Albert R. Harrison, still unmarried and last of the Harrison children,
died on March 24, 1946, and in September his executors sold Huntley to
August W. and Eleanor S. Nagel.[48] For some reason the Nagels had
Edward M. Pitt, an Arlington architect, do seven sheets of drawings of
Huntley that same year.[49]
Less than three years later the Nagels sold the house to the present
owners, Colonel and Mrs. Ransom G. Amlong.[50]
Chapter 2 Notes
[Footnote 16: Deed Book B., No. 4, p. 448, November 7, 1859 Fairfax
County, Virginia. T.F. Mason's first name is spelled "Thomason,"
"Thompson" and "Thomson."]
[Footnote 17: Helen Hill Miller, =George Mason Constitutionalist=
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), p. 18.]
[Footnote 18: Stevens Thompson Mason, =Mason Family Chart=.]
[Footnote 19: Ann was not Mason's grandmother, but the first wife of his
grandfather. Thomson was a favorite of Grandfather Chichester and he
would have known of Ann Gordon. Mr. Chichester had, as a matter of fact,
spent his first married years with the Gordon family.]
[Footnote 20: C.A. Gordon, =History of the House of Gordon= (Aberdeen:
D. Wyllie & Son, 1890), p. 11.]
[Footnote 21: Will Book M, No. 1, p. 130, November 21, 1820, Fairfax
County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 22: Deed Book W, No. 2, p. 199, October 1, 1823, Fairfax
County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 23: January 29, 1818, Letter to Alexandria Baggett from
Thomson F. Mason, Alexandria, William Francis Smith Collection, Thomson
F. Mason Papers.]
[Footnote 24: =Ibid.=, A.P. Glover [?] to T.F. Mason, October 18, 1819.]
[Footnote 25: =Ibid.=, P. Taylor "sent T.F. Mason, esq...." February 5,
1823. Mason either was not at Huntley at the time, or the items were for
his tenant. The bill notes specifically that the delivery was for
"W.T.R.".]
[Footnote 26: Lee vs. Chichester, #60, Fairfax County Court House. From
a deposition of Bernard Hooe.]
[Footnote 27: Letter, William Francis Smith Collection.]
[Footnote 28: =Ibid.=, Price Skinner to T.F. Mason, December 7, 1832.]
[Footnote 29: At least 10 documents concerning the work which Mason did
at Colross are in the William Francis Smith Collection.]
[Footnote 30: Will Book T, No. 1, p. 3, Fairfax County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 31: Will Book T, No. 1, pps. 1-4, Fairfax County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 32: Deed Book B, No. 4, p. 448, November 7, 1859, Fairfax
County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 33: Deed Book B, No. 4, pps. 449-50, November 7, 1859, Fairfax
County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 34: Deed Book B, No. 4, p. 451, December 7, 1859, Fairfax
County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 35: United States, National Archives, Record Group 77, Map of
Eastern Virginia and Vicinity of Washington, Arlington, January 1, 1862,
Bureau of Topographical Engineers.]
[Footnote 36: Deed Book E, No. 4, p. 195, June 12, 1862, Fairfax County,
Virginia.]
[Footnote 37: =Alexandria Gazette=, June 12, 1862.]
[Footnote 38: =Alexandria Gazette=, May 13, 1868. King, then in the U.S.
Army, married on May 18, 1827, according to the Christ Church Register.
On May 14, 1879, when he sold Lloyd's Lot, which is adjacent to the
Huntley property, to Pierson and Harrison, he is listed as "Benjamin
King of Anne Arundel County." King, John Mason, and T.F. Mason, all
married girls named Price and may have been relatives. It is possible
therefore that King was the brother-in-law of T.F.]
[Footnote 39: Deed Book I, No. 4, p. 236, November 21, 1868, Fairfax
County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 40: =Alexandria Gazette=, May 16, 1870.]
[Footnote 41: 1870 Census, Reel 108, Frame Number 197, National
Archives. In earlier censuses neither Mason nor King appeared. The
actual occupant at Huntley prior to this time was usually an overseer or
tenant. Not knowing who most of these were and having no maps coded to
the census, the author was unable to gather any earlier information from
the census.]
[Footnote 42: Deed Book O, No. 4, p. 338, March 11, 1871, Fairfax
County, Virginia.]
[Footnote 43: G.M. Hopkins, =Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Washington=.
(Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins, 1879), p. 71.]
[Footnote 44: =Alexandria Gazette=, May 14, 1892. A Pierson property is
shown adjacent to "Huntley" on the 1879 Hopkins map.]
[Footnote 45: =Alexandria Gazette=, March 3, 1911. The =Fairfax Herald=,
March 10, 1911, also carried an obituary. The March 4, 1911, =Alexandria
Gazette=, noted that the funeral took place "from the residence this
afternoon ... conducted by Rev. J.M. Nourse. The remains were interred
in Presbyterian Cemetery in this City." The Harrison plot is in the
third section to the left from the entrance. Stones bear no epitaphs,
only names and dates of birth and death.]
[Footnote 46: Deed Book J, No. 7, p. 22, April 5, 1911, Fairfax County,
Virginia.]
[Footnote 47: =Alexandria Gazette=, "Northern Virginia Industrial
Edition," January 1, 1930, Section C, p. 8.]
[Footnote 48: Deed Book 515, p. 60, September 1, 1946, Fairfax County,
Virginia. See also Deed Book 515, p. 64, August 21, 1953. A survey of
the area is shown on pps. 62-63. The plat is marked "Farm and Mansion
House Area," and shows the "House," "Tenant House," and "Barn."]
[Footnote 49: According to the records of the American Institute of
Architects, Mr. Pitt died January 18, 1969.]
[Footnote 50: Deed Book 694, p. 400, June 11, 1949, Fairfax County,
Virginia. Col. Amlong is a retired U.S. Army officer.]
[Illustration: Figure 9. Huntley, front view. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund
Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 10. Huntley, rear view. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund
Barrett.]
CHAPTER III
AN ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION[51]
The buildings currently comprising the Huntley complex include the
mansion house, the tenant house, the storage and necessary house, the
ice house, the root cellar and the spring house.
The Dwelling or Mansion House
Huntley, the mansion house, is of brick construction. The brick is laid
in common, or American, bond, with five courses of stretchers to one of
headers. Average brick size is eight and three-eights inches by four
inches by two and one-quarter inches thick.[52] "The brickwork does not
seem to have been laid ornamentally, but this is not strange for a
building of the early part of the nineteenth century, where the emphasis
was taken away from brick and it was often either stuccoed or
painted."[53]
Room Arrangement
Originally the house was "H" shaped. The center portion is three stories
at the front (south), two at the rear, and only one room deep. The wings
on either side are two stories at the front, one at the rear and two
rooms deep. Construction of the house on the slope of the hill accounts
for the difference in height. Major entrances are on the first floor,
although a ground floor is located beneath it. The wings project about
half their width front and rear from the center section. This
arrangement provides a large center room at the first floor level, with
two rooms on each side. On the second floor level there is only one
large center room, while on the ground floor level there is a large
center room with two flanking rooms on each side. Here were the kitchen,
various storage rooms, and possibly quarters for the household staff.
Every room on the first floor and almost every room on the ground floor
had an exterior entrance. There is no obvious physical evidence to
indicate the means of access to the second story room. Evidence of a
dumbwaiter from the ground floor kitchen area to the floor above still
exists in the rear ground floor room of the west wing.
A wing has been added to the rear portion of the west side of the house.
This is partly brick and partly frame and is of relatively recent
construction. The rear of the H-shaped building has been filled in to
create a hall space, bath and an enclosed stair to the second floor
room. At the second floor level it provides an extra room and a bath.
This work is probably nineteenth century, but the exact date is unknown.
In front, at the first floor level is a porch addition. This is built
around earlier steps which are of quarried stone supported by a brick
wall on each side. The present porch roof covers and obscures the brick
arch and top of the fanlight over the entrance. There was probably no
covered porch on the house originally.
[Illustration: Figure 11. Mantel, central first floor room. 1969. Photo
by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 12. Mantel, north room first floor. 1969. Photo by
Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
Windows and Doors
Windows in the facade are unique in that they are set into recessed
brick frames. While the frames in the root cellar are arched, those in
the residence are square panels, with the window set into the center of
the frame. According to architectural historian E. Blaine Cliver, the
exterior window construction is quite simple with a double beaded frame
set into the brick two to three inches from the front surface. The
simplicity of the window framing, which is Federal in style, would place
the house somewhat after the late Colonial period, in the early
nineteenth century. Windows on the ground and first floor are
six-over-six, double-hung sash, except adjacent to the entrance on the
first floor porch where they are four-over-four. Windows on the second
floor consist of a single, nine-pane sash, which opens to the side on
hinges. The pane size is eight and a half inches by ten inches and a
large portion of the glass is early. The exterior shutters consist of a
single panel of fixed louvers and much shutter hardware survives. This
includes several types of shutter stops, which are generally wrought
rather than stamped. A fine boot scraper also exists at the rear first
floor entrance.
The door entrance in the south front has framing sidelights and an
elliptical fanlight with wood tracery. In general, the oval fanlight
came into use in the 1790's and went out of common use around 1825;
although according to Mr. Cliver it probably was not common in this area
until after 1800. The stiles of the entrance are basically the pilaster
type although the reeding within the pilaster is rounded rather than
flat. An opposing door at the north or rear of the center room was also
originally exterior. The keystone over the fanlight has a beaded center
portion which is similar to those found in the work of nineteenth
century architect Asher Benjamin.
Interior Features
The center first floor room has a fine mantel which is also similar in
proportion to the Federal styles of Benjamin. The mantel is somewhat
busy, and a little heavy, yet it has delicate detail and reeding on the
sides. The mantels in the side rooms are much simpler, as might be
expected in ancillary rooms. Basically, however, their proportions are
the same, dateable to the early nineteenth century but with much less
style involved. All four of the side mantels are of the same basic
design, but each has been given an individual detail or refinement.
The second floor room has a simple mantel and moldings. It has the ovolo
curve in the molding around the architraves which was common in the
eighteenth century and persisted into the nineteenth.[54] This room
would have been less used than downstairs rooms and the moldings are
bound to be simpler, as is often found in the nineteenth century, when
the upstairs was no longer as much used as in the eighteenth century.
This room has a tray ceiling of the type one would expect to find
beneath a hip roof, such as Huntley had in the nineteenth century.
Much of the flooring in the house is early, consisting of wide random
width pine boards. The saw marks in the subflooring above the ground
floor center room are vertical, but apparently from a mechanical saw.
Beams under this portion of the house are hand-sawn on one side and
broad-axed on the other.
[Illustration: Figure 13. Detail, exterior door, north facade. 1969.]
[Illustration: Figure 14. Detail, interior of entrance door, south facade,
1969.]
[Illustration: Figure 15. Detail, window and door, central first floor
room. 1969. Photos by Wm. Edmund Barrett]
On the ground floor only the kitchen fireplace in the west side is open.
There is evidence of a possible oven in the west chimney in the center
room. In the east wing the front fireplace has been closed, though a
balancing structural arch in the adjacent room is still open. The floor
on the ground level was brick but floors in all rooms except the rear
room in the east wing have been covered with concrete.
Much early hardware remains at Huntley, some of which fits stylistically
into the period of construction. Most of it cannot be positively dated.
The front door latch, for example, is an old Carpenter-type lock,
generally common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but having
no visible manufacturers mark, it cannot be positively dated.
Door and window architraves in the center first floor room, and in rooms
in the east wing have corner blocks, while those in the west wing do
not. Detail of the architraves throughout is early, and those with
corner blocks are probably contemporary with the rest of the house. In
the center room, first floor, the mantel, door and window architraves,
and panelling beneath windows, all have the same molding details,
indicating that all woodwork is of the same age.
Exterior Features
On the two wings the wooden cornice is fairly deep, approximately eight
inches, providing a slight projection. This may be indicative of a
somewhat later date--moving toward the cornices of the Greek Revival
period. They are probably of a later date, but if so, certainly within
thirty to forty years after the house was constructed, or no later than
the mid-nineteenth century. The saw-tooth cornice line does not run
behind the present wooden cornice, indicating, along with the fact that
brick bonding continues into the gable end, that the roof configuration
on the wings is probably original. The only probable differences between
the original roof and that now in place is that the gable ends over the
center section were clipped, giving the appearance of a hip roof when
seen from the front. This roof continued, shed style, over the wings.
There probably were no covered porches and the front porch at the first
floor level may have been open above and below.
The Tenant House
The tenant house is a brick two-story structure with a ridge roof, a
slightly off-center interior chimney and a three bay front. The building
is approximately thirty-two feet long and twenty-two feet wide. A seven
foot projection on the right end, added in this century, houses bath and
kitchen facilities. It is approximately two hundred seventy feet west of
the mansion house.
The brick is laid in common bond, with five courses of stretchers to one
of headers. The average brick size is eight and one-half inches by four
inches by two and one-eighth inches. The cornice line is composed of
three rows of bricks stepped outward. The first and third courses are
stretchers and the middle course is composed of headers laid to form a
dentil course.
This structure burned in 1947; now only the exterior walls are original.
All windows, doors and interiors date from remodelling after the fire.
As part of the Huntley complex, it is still a visually important
building.
[Illustration: Figure 16. Necessary and tenant house from the icehouse,
1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 17. Necessary, rear or west elevation. 1969. Photo
by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
The Storage House and Necessary
The building referred to by the present owners as the slave quarters
does not seem to have been suitable for the housing of human beings, and
may actually not have been used for that purpose. It is a one-story
brick structure with a ridge roof over three rooms. Neither of the end
rooms has a finished floor or ceiling nor do they appear ever to have
had finished walls; the windows are wall openings protected by iron
bars; each room has four brick diamond-shaped ventilators and neither
seems to have been heated--in addition to being open, there are no
chimneys or flues. It is likely that both rooms were used for storage
spaces and, from the evidence in existing doors and windows, secure
ones. The overall measurements of the building are approximately
thirty-four feet eight inches by ten feet ten inches, each end room
measuring approximately eleven feet eleven inches by ten feet ten
inches.
The necessary, a privy or outdoor toilet, occupies the central recessed
portion between the two end storage rooms. It measures approximately ten
feet ten inches by five feet five inches, and includes separate men's
and women's sections.
Brick in the structure has an average size of nine inches by four and
one-quarter inches by two and one-quarter inches. The bond is common,
varying from three courses of stretchers to one of headers at the
foundations, to five to one at the gable end. Queen closers are used at
the corners of the structure. The cornice line is three bricks deep,
stepped outward. The bottom and top course are stretchers, while the
middle course is set at an angle in a saw-tooth pattern,[55] the same
cornice as is used on the house.
The structure is symmetrical. Brick ventilators, two in each gable end
and two to the rear of each end section, are worked into the brick wall.
They are in the shape of a flattened diamond, with sixteen headers
eliminated to form the pattern.[56]
To the rear of the structure the roof has been replaced, though the
front part of the ridge is old. This may be accounted for by the fact
that the rear wall is bowed back two or three inches out of plumb. This
may be immediately seen in the joint of the wall dividing the storage
room on the left from the necessary. This shift could have necessitated
the replacement of the roof to the rear.
Hand wrought, rose head nails were used in the construction of the doors
to the necessary; they may have been used for their clenching
properties. The latches are hand wrought, or at least one of the early
fabrications. The left door consists of three vertical boards, from left
to right; nine, ten and eleven inches in width. The center board is
beaded on each side, while the outer boards are undecorated.
Hand wrought rose head nails are also used in the construction of the
barred windows in the front of the storage rooms. Here they are used
structurally, tho the effect is decorative. The bars are iron, and the
original frame and bars remain in the left storage unit window.
The storage rooms have dirt floors and unfinished ceilings. Bars at the
windows, strong doors and the open ventilators would indicate storage
areas needing light, ventilation and security. Such an area might be
required for any number of farm produced commodities.
Both necessaries, in the center portion, are completely finished, with
plaster walls, well shaped seats, windows with sash and glass, and brick
floors, now covered with concrete. The necessary for men to the right
has one seat, while that for women, to the left, has three. Two of these
are at ordinary height, while the third is at a child's height. The
necessary was cleaned from the rear. A tray, inserted beneath a log sill
at the foundation line, could be removed, cleaned and reinserted daily.
[Illustration: Figure 18. Necessary, door detail. 1969. Photo by Wm.
Edmund Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 19. Detail, interior, women's necessary, 1969.
Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
Part of the lath in the ceiling of the necessary is split; there has
been some replacement with sawn lath. Lath nails in a piece of split
lath removed from the ceiling probably postdate 1830, while nails used
in the seats are cut and probably postdate 1840. The significance of
dating these nails is minimal as the interiors could have been finished
at any time after the construction of the building.
The ceiling and columns of the recessed entrance to the necessaries were
recently replaced by the present owners, the Amlongs. They replaced the
round columns with square posts. The brick floor laid in a herringbone
pattern, if not original, is certainly early.
In the absence of documentary material it is difficult to date this
structure. It would probably be safe to say that it was built as early
as the house, c. 1820, and possibly before.
The Icehouse
The icehouse, located sixty-six feet northwest of the mansion, is one of
the most striking structures at Huntley, and one that differs from most
other Virginia icehouses known to the author. It exhibits quality of
design and workmanship seldom seen in a utilitarian structure. Most
icehouses are square, a simple form which would offer easier
construction than the round structure at Huntley. Not only is this
structure round, but the roof is hemispherical, forming a complete
circular dome. Construction of the dome is all headers. Some of the
bricks are fired to a dark color but there is no discernible pattern in
the brick work.
All of the structure is below ground. At the top of the dome is a square
opening of quarried stone which is at ground level. The stone here shows
the wear of ropes which were used to lower and raise ice. Most other ice
houses are at least partially above ground, with some type of
superstructure, or reveted into a bank or side of a hill.[57] They
require some depth, and insulation, so that they are usually finished in
brick or stone. Sawdust was an ingredient commonly used for storing ice,
used in alternating layers of block ice and sawdust. Sawdust was
certainly used in the icehouse at Huntley, and has covered the floor to
such an extent that it is not possible to determine the original depth
of the structure. Walking on the present "floor" gives one somewhat the
same feeling as walking on a peat bog. The distance is at least twelve
feet from the present floor level to the entrance at the top of the
dome, and approximately fifteen and one-half feet in diameter.
The dome is strong enough to support the Amlong automobile, which is
parked above it in a recently constructed carport. Access to the
icehouse may be had directly from the adjacent root cellar. One stone
step exists, in the root cellar wall. There may have been a ladder or
wooden steps at one time. The walls between the root cellar and icehouse
are separate, indicating that the two structures were constructed at
different dates.
The Root Cellar
This building, located fifty feet northwest of the mansion and adjacent
to the icehouse, consists of a one story brick structure above ground,
approximately fifteen feet two inches square, with a full cellar below
ground level. Access to the cellar is through steep steps of rough cut
stone, located on the right side of the structure. Access to the
icehouse is directly opposite.
[Illustration: Figure 20. Detail, dome and ground level opening,
icehouse. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 21. Detail, icehouse door to root cellar. 1969.
Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 22. Detail, root cellar entrance to icehouse.
1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
Evidence of ventilators can be seen on both front and rear. These were
barred openings approximately six inches deep with vents to the surface,
which were finished with brick and faced with quarried stone at ground
level. The bars are now gone, but they were horizontal, instead of
vertical as are those in the storage rooms adjacent to the necessary and
of approximately the same size. There is no shelving or other built-in
furniture to indicate the use of the cellar. Since the room above and
the roof are replacements, there is little indication of actual use, and
the name "root cellar" has been used only for convenience.
The cellar walls are brick, laid in common bond, with three courses of
stretchers to one of headers. This bond is uniform for the structure,
above and below ground. The average size of bricks is eight and
three-eighths by four by two and one-half inches. The plain cornice is
uniform, probably indicating that the roof was originally hipped.
With the exception of the brick walls, which stand substantially as
constructed, the structure has been entirely rebuilt. Windows in these
walls are set into brick arches which are decorative rather than
structural. The recessed windows of the building like those in the
mansion house are of particular interest.
Dairy and Springs
A dairy or springhouse is located at the base of the hill, some one
hundred fifty-six feet southeast of the mansion house, near the point
where the south driveway to Huntley meets Harrison Lane. This spring,
and the one immediately across the road, form the source of the south
branch of Little Hunting Creek, from which derived the early name of
Huntley, "Hunting Creek Farm." The springhouse is brick, now overgrown
and filled almost completely so that there is no flow of water and
original use is difficult to ascertain. The structure may have had a
door and shelves in the brick wall. The roof is arched, one brick course
deep, and the structure is reveted into the hillside.
There is another spring on the hill to the northwest above the mansion
house. This, too, is encased with bricks, all below ground, and could
have furnished water to the house through gravity flow. Since both this
cistern type spring and the springhouse below the mansion house are
probably contemporary, the lower one may have served exclusively as a
dairy.
At least two other springs or shallow wells also exist on the property,
providing the headwaters for Barnyard Creek, and for part of Dogue
Creek.
Early Structures No Longer Standing
Though barns existed until the 1950's, none of these, as evidenced by
photographs, would seem to date from the period of construction of the
house. Some one hundred seventy-one feet west of the tenant house, and
in a straight line with the main house, are the remains of a large brick
foundation. This foundation supported a sizeable structure in the
Huntley complex, which may have been a barn. The ruins are rectangular,
and approximately thirty-three by sixty feet.
[Illustration: Figure 23. Dairy and springhouse, viewed from the
southeast. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
None of the storage rooms in the outbuildings show any evidence of ever
having been used as a smoke house, though the structure over the root
cellar may have been used for that purpose. It has been completely
remodeled inside, including a floor and roof, and any evidence of smoke
house use has been eradicated. Though one would expect to find, in a
complete southern plantation complex, barns, slave quarters, and a smoke
house, none of these now exist at Huntley, as is the case with most
surviving eighteenth and nineteenth century mansions.
Chapter 3 Notes
[Footnote 51: All quotes in this section unless otherwise credited are
from E. Blaine Cliver who visited the site with the author on November
11, 1969, and taped his comments. Mr. Cliver is with the firm of
Geoffrey W. Fairfax, AIA, Honolulu, Hawaii, where he is working as
restoration architect for Iolani Palace. Calder Loth, architectural
historian with the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission visited the
site with the author on May 12, 1969. Their comments were of
immeasurable value in the investigation.]
[Footnote 52: All measurements are approximate, and are only used to
suggest scale and distance.]
[Footnote 53: In this area examples include Arlington House, 1802-17;
Tudor Place, about 1815; and Oatlands, Loudoun County, 1800-27.]
[Footnote 54: Similar moldings may be found at Sully, 1794, Fairfax
County, and at Monticello, about 1770-1808.]
[Footnote 55: This was a relatively common cornice line in the
Washington area. It appears on, among others, Earps Ordinary in Fairfax,
last half of the eighteenth century; Millers House, Colvin Run, about
1825; servants wing of Decatur House, 1818, Washington.]
[Footnote 56: This design is used, among other places, in the
outbuildings at Bremo, about 1820, Fluvanna County, and the jail, about
1848, Palmyra. In the immediate area the use is known to the author only
in the barn at the Oxon Hill Childrens Museum, Prince Georges County,
Maryland, early nineteenth century.]
[Footnote 57: The icehouse at Belle Grove, Middletown, late eighteenth
century, is the former type, while Woodlawn, Fairfax County, 1805, is
believed to have been the latter type.]
[Illustration: Figure 24.
Architect George Hadfield's exhibit at the Royal Academy, 1780-82.]
[Illustration: Figure 25.
Hadfield's design, bed chamber story plan.
Courtesy, Avery Library, Columbia University]
CHAPTER IV
THE ARCHITECT OF HUNTLEY
The construction of Huntley was probably not supervised by an architect.
There are too many imperfections for that. At the same time, it is too
architectonic to have either evolved or been put together from style
manuals. It is likely instead that the building derived from an
architect's plan.
The Architectural Plan
The mansion house at Huntley has remarkable refinement for a secondary
house of a Virginia planter's family. This includes not only concept,
scale, and the manner in which the component parts hold together, but
extends to detail as well. For example, both the center first floor room
and the east wing have corner blocks, of two different designs, as a
part of door and window architraves. The architect Benjamin Latrobe used
corner blocks, for which the drawings still exist, in some of the rooms
at Decatur House in 1818.[58] Fiske Kimball, the architectural
historian, believes that:
In the Forrester House and the Andrew House there [Salem,
Massachusetts] at this time [1818], and in the Decatur House,
Washington, just before, we find the first examples of doors
framed, not by a mitred architrave, but by moulded bands with
corner blocks, which remained characteristic through the middle of
the Century.[59]
That Huntley, c. 1820, should have corner blocks, is probably too much
to expect from a local carpenter's design, if Mr. Kimball's dates are
correct. Inasmuch as the corner blocks are an integral part of the
design of the center first floor room at Huntley, there can be no
question that they were original. It is interesting to note that at
Decatur House, as at Huntley and Arlington, corner blocks are used only
in some rooms, and not uniformly throughout the house, as is common
later.
Of course, Thomson Francis Mason could have had easy access to the works
of Gibbs, Morris, Benjamin and others. George Mason IV had enough
knowledge of architecture and design to employ William Buckland to
design the interiors at Gunston Hall and his library was extensive. Mrs.
Rowland, in speculating on what was in that library, notes that it was
divided among his five sons, including T. F.'s father, and further notes
that:
The editor of the "Spotswood Letters" notices the libraries, really
extensive for the time, of the second William Byrd of "Westover,"
of Sir John Randolph of Williamsburg, and of John Mercer of
"Marlboro," and numerous others nearly as large, among them that of
George Mason of Gunston.[60]
Books might have given Mason an appreciation and knowledge of
architecture and design, but it is highly unlikely that the design for
Huntley derived from a book. In discussing the design of houses in this
period architect Robert Mills noted in his "Autobiographical Notes"
that:
The principle assumed and acted upon was that beauty is founded
upon order, and that convenience and utility were constituent parts
... the author has made it a rule never to consult books when he
had to design a building. His considerations were first, the object
of the building; second, the means appropriated for its
construction; third, the situation it was to occupy; these served
as guides in forming the outlines of his plan. Books are useful
guides to the student, but when he entered on the practice of a
profession, he should lay them aside and only consult them upon
doubtful points, or in matters of details or, as mere studies, not
to copy buildings from.[61]
At Huntley the designer certainly considered convenience and utility,
while keeping in mind "the object of the building ... the means
appropriated for its construction" and "the situation it was to occupy."
Area Architects, Circa 1820
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Dr. William
Thornton, Charles Bulfinch, Robert Mills, Benjamin Latrobe and George
Hadfield were all designing buildings in the stylistic mode of Huntley.
Mason would have been aware of Dr. Thornton's work at Tudor Place in
Georgetown, completed about 1815, and at Woodlawn Plantation, near
Huntley, completed about 1805. Though Thornton did not die until 1828,
he was already an elderly man by 1820, and Tudor Place is the last house
he is known to have designed.[62]
Mason would have been aware of Bulfinch's work from his visits to
Boston, and Bulfinch arrived in this area in 1817. He immediately busied
himself as Architect of the United States Capitol, however.[63] Robert
Mills studied in Washington with Latrobe, and later designed buildings
here, but he was not in Washington at the time Huntley was built.[64]
Latrobe, who died in 1820, was at the height of his career and had ample
commissions in the period of time from 1810-20. Hadfield, on the other
hand, was available, needed work,[65] and had not yet begun his City
Hall. Huntley would have provided not only suitable work, but a
challenging site, and a suitable family for whom to work.
George Hadfield
Hadfield, a British subject, was born in Leghorn, Italy, about 1764.[66]
His architectural training and collection of architectural prizes were
outstanding when he arrived in this country in 1795 to superintend the
construction of the United States Capitol. He, and his sister Maria
Cosway, a painter, were both friends of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson
championed Hadfield here, though his actual recommendation to the
Capitol job was from John Trumbull, the American artist. Soon
difficulties began with Dr. William Thornton, who had won the
competition for design of the Capitol and Hadfield lost his job.
From the time of Hadfield's dismissal from the Capitol in 1798,
until 1820, when he was busy with his _magnum opus_, the City Hall,
the records are sketchy and incomplete. He elected to stay in this
city rather than go to Philadelphia where the social and political
centers were. This decision must have been made deliberately, with
the prospect of designing many buildings in this growing
metropolis. He was without a steady income during all this period,
yet he was able to keep busy on many jobs that enabled him to stay
alive.[67]
Hadfield was obviously not always happy with the commissions which came
his way, however. On September 22, 1822, he wrote Jefferson:
... am much obliged to you Sir, for the wish you express to inform
my Sister that I am in good health and doing well: the former,
thanks to Providence, I enjoy; as to the latter, I cannot say much;
there is here a stagnation in the building line, owing to the
scarcity of money, that is very injurious to both architects and
mechanics. I have for the two preceding seasons been occupied in
the building of the City Hall....[68]
We know little of what Hadfield accomplished in Washington, though his
obituary, in 1826, gives some leads:
It is a duty we owe to the founders of our city, when any of them
are called from the scene of their former usefulness, to do honor
to their memory, by recording with truth, whatever they have done
in laying the foundations of our infant metropolis, or promoting
its welfare. It is but doing justice to the dead; and it is to be
hoped, when such men die, that it will excite the living to emulate
them. Amongst this class may be placed the late Mr. GEORGE
HADFIELD, _Architect_, who died at his residence in this city, on
Sunday evening, the 5th instant, aged about 62 years....
The obituary notes that Mr. Hadfield never married, mentions his early
training and prizes, his arrival in Washington to superintend the
construction of the Capitol and the subsequent arguments. His
accomplishments were summarized:
Amongst the works which will serve to perpetuate his memory in this
city are the City Hall; the Public Offices, which were built from
his design; Mr. Custis's house [Arlington House]; Com. Porter's;
Mr. Way's Row, now occupied by Mr. Gunton and others; Heightman's
Row, now occupied by Mr. Poor and others; Col. Taylor's, now
Williamson's Hotel; the Mausoleum, built for the families of Van
Ness and Burns; and the Branch Bank of the United States. It is
only to be regretted that there are so few remains of his uncommon
talents.[69]
There are "remains of his uncommon talents" which are not in that list.
Hadfield is known, for example, to have provided plans and designs for
the Marine Barracks in Washington.[70] There are also good reasons to
believe that he designed Analostan, located on what is now called
Theodore Roosevelt Island, for John Mason, Thomson Francis Mason's
uncle.[71]
Similarities to the Work of Hadfield
Among the few known drawings of Hadfield is one labelled "A Country
House--Geo. Hadfield--Exhibited Arc. designs at Royal acad. in
1780-82...."[72] The house is of three-part construction and has windows
set into arched recessed panels. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) is
of three-part construction and has windows set into arched recessed
panels.[73] The City Hall in Washington, now the District of Columbia
Court House, is of three-part construction, with connecting hyphens, and
has windows set into arched recessed panels.[74] The same is true of the
plan for Analostan, though one wing evidently was never constructed.
Huntley, too, is of three-part construction and though the windows are
not set into arched recessed panels, they are set into the center of
square recessed panels, which serve the same design function of catching
and reflecting light and shadow. The recessed arch appears at Huntley in
the root cellar superstructure, however, duplicating Hadfield's use in
the structures mentioned above.
[Illustration:
Figure 26. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) showing portico
designed by Hadfield. Photo courtesy National Park Service.]
[Illustration:
Figure 27. Analostan, now demolished, formerly stood on Theodore
Roosevelt Island. Possibly designed by Hadfield. Photo by Abbie
Rowe. Courtesy National Park Service.]
Arlington House has a two story center section with one story wings, as
does Huntley. It is possible that had Huntley been built on different
terrain, it might have followed the more common "I" plan of Arlington
House. Given the limited space on Huntley's hill, however, the "H" plan
obviously made more usable space available on the site. The chimneys at
Arlington, and those at Huntley, are placed in the same position in
relation to the center structure and the wings; the wooden mantels in
both houses have obvious stylistic similarities.
When Huntley is compared with Analostan another similarity shows up. The
gable end at Analostan has a relatively shallow cornice, common in the
period, outlining a pediment strikingly similar to the gable ends of the
wings at Huntley. Located within the pediment at both houses is an
elliptical ventilator.
The design for Huntley could easily have come from Hadfield. There were
opportunities for T.F. Mason to have met him through Jefferson or
through his uncle, General John Mason of Analostan.
George Washington Parke Custis of Arlington House and Thomson Mason of
Hollin Hall were both sheep raisers and there was much rivalry between
the two families in this field, including Mason entries which took
prizes at Custis exhibitions and shows.[75] This offers, in addition to
the day-to-day opportunities presented to Mason through his political
and social standing, one more means whereby T.F. Mason might have
learned of Hadfield, observed his work, met him, and contracted for
design assistance in the construction of his country house.
In addition, Mason was a lawyer, who later became a justice of the peace
and a judge. For several years before and after 1820, Hadfield was
involved with the design and construction of the City Hall, which was to
house the Courts of the District. Mason would have been aware of this
and would probably have known Hadfield.
Certainly the design evidence of Huntley indicates the work of an
architect. The structure is much too architectonic to have evolved and
in many respects much too advanced for its day to have been designed by
a local carpenter-builder. Perhaps at some future time we shall discover
information which indicates precisely whose trained hand put all the
pieces together in this highly satisfactory manner.
Until that time, the evidence strongly points to George Hadfield.
Chapter 4 Notes
[Footnote 58: Paul F. Norton, "Decatur House: Design and Designer,"
=Historic Preservation=, Volume 19, Numbers 3-4 (July-December 1967),
pp. 9-24.]
[Footnote 59: Fiske Kimball, =Domestic Architecture of the American
Colonies and of the Early Republic=, (New York: Dover, 1966 Reprint), p.
27.]
[Footnote 60: Rowland, =George Mason=, Volume II, p. 369.]
[Footnote 61: H. M. Pierce Gallagher, =Robert Mills= (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1935), p. 170.]
[Footnote 62: Deering Davis, Stephen P. Dorsey, Ralph Cole Hall,
=Georgetown Houses of the Federal Period=. (New York: Bonanza Books,
1944), pp. 21-23.]
[Footnote 63: Lonnelle Aikman, =We the People= (Washington: U.S. Capitol
Historical Society, 1965), p. 33.]
[Footnote 64: H.M. Gallagher, =Robert Mills=, p. 169.]
[Footnote 65: George S. Hunsberger, "The Architectural Career of George
Hadfield," =Records of the Columbia Historical Society=, Volume 51-52
(1955), pp. 46-65.]
[Footnote 66: =Ibid.=]
[Footnote 67: =Ibid.= p. 51. See also: Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone,
=Dictionary of American Biography= (New York: Charles Scribner, 1932
(1931)), Vol. IV, p. 76.]
[Footnote 68: Letter, George Hadfield to Thomas Jefferson, Thomas
Jefferson papers. Volume 222, op. 39775, Library of Congress.]
[Footnote 69: =Daily National Intelligencer=, February 13, 1826.]
[Footnote 70: Karl Schuon, =Home of the Commandants= (Washington:
Leatherneck Association, 1966), pp. 61-64.]
[Footnote 71: Harry F. Cunningham, Joseph A. Younger, Wilmer Smith,
=Measured Drawings of Georgian Architecture in the District of Columbia,
1750-1820= (New York: Architectural Book Co., 1914), Sheets 58-61.]
[Footnote 72: Original watercolor signed "Geo. Hadfield, Sept. 1798,"
Avery Library, Columbia University.]
[Footnote 73: Murray H. Nelligan, =Custis-Lee Mansion= (Washington:
National Park Service, 1950), pp. 2-4, 6, 15, 24. The staff at Arlington
House was also kind enough to allow the author the use of Mr.
Nellingan's unpublished manuscript on Arlington House.]
[Footnote 74: H. Paul Caemmerer, =Historic Washington= (Washington:
Columbia Historical Society, 1960), pp. 34, 39.]
[Footnote 75: Edith Moore Sprouse, "Died in a Kind of Fit Like....",
Hollin Hills Bulletin, May and June-July, 1969.]
SUMMARY
It should be clear from the picture of Mason which emerges from an
earlier part of this report that his tastes and his capabilities could
have included a house designed by a known architect. His family ties,
educational background, travels, position and social standing evidence
the highest standards of his day. His acquisition of Colross, his
sensitive repairs of that structure and the manner in which he seems to
have furnished the house again indicate taste and awareness of current
architectural trends.
The design evidence indicates that Mason did build well at Huntley, and
that he sought assistance in doing so. Huntley's similarities to other
area structures designed by the architect George Hadfield are striking.
In addition, of all the architects in the area at the time Hadfield was
most available and is believed to have already designed one house for
the Mason family, Analostan. There is also good reason to believe that
Thomson Francis Mason and Hadfield knew each other.
Whatever the derivation of the mansion house at Huntley, it survives as
a notable example of early nineteenth century architecture; as an
example of a farm or country house of an early nineteenth century city
dweller; as a Mason family house and as a part of a well sited and
relatively complete complex. When considered together, these factors
make Huntley an important architectural landmark.
[Illustration:
Figure 28. Huntley, front elevation, 1946. Edward M. Pitt,
Architect. Blueprints courtesy Col. and Mrs. Ransom Amlong. Photo
copies by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]
[Illustration: Figure 29. Huntley, rear elevation.]
[Illustration: Figure 30. Huntley, basement floor plan.]
[Illustration: Figure 31. Huntley, first floor plan.]
[Illustration: Figure 32. Huntley, second floor plan.]
APPENDIX A
SOME MASON HOUSES IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA
Mason land holdings were vast in Stafford, Prince William, Loudoun and
Fairfax Counties in Virginia, and in Maryland and Kentucky. In the
northern Virginia area the Masons built or occupied a number of houses
many of which are mentioned here.
Thomson Francis Mason Houses
_501 Cameron Street_, Alexandria. This is believed to be the "large and
comodious" dwelling which, according to an 1823 entry in the _Alexandria
Gazette_, Mason was renting at the corner of Cameron and Pitt Streets.
The house is a three-story brick structure, probably built during the
first quarter of the nineteenth century. It is still standing.
(_Alexandria Gazette_, March 13, 1823 and November 1, 1833.)
_Colross_, Alexandria, 1100 block of Oronoco Street, block between
Oronoco, Pendleton, North Henry and North Fayette. This was an existing
house built in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, acquired by
Thomson F. Mason in 1833. Mason was buried in a tomb behind the mansion
after his death in 1838. The main house was moved to Princeton, New
Jersey, in 1929 and rebuilt there. Today the block in Alexandria
includes a warehouse, car wash, automobile repair facility and a
transformer station. The present location of the remains of Thomson F.
Mason, removed from Colross, is not known to the writer. (Mary G.
Powell, _The History of Alexandria_, Va., Richmond, Wm. Byrd Press,
1928, p. 261; _New York Herald Tribune_, July 7, 1929, "Colross Built
1785, to come to Jersey site."; Mrs. Betty Carter Smoot, _Days in an Old
Town_, Alexandria, privately printed, 1934, pp. 121-32; Henry H. Saylor,
_Alexandria Virginia_, The White Pine Series, New York, Russell F.
Whitehead, 1926, (photographs and drawings); plus additional material
available in the Alexandria Public Library.)
_The Hallowell School_, 609 Oronoco Street, Alexandria. A
two-and-a-half-story brick structure, built circa 1800, it is the
companion house to the Lee Home, next door at 607 Oronoco. At 609,
Benjamin Hallowell operated a school among whose students was Robert E.
Lee. T.F. Mason acquired the house after the Hallowell School moved
elsewhere, at public auction on February 9, 1835, though he may have
lived there earlier as a tenant. By the time of purchase he was already
a resident at Colross, but a sale advertisement for 609 Oronoco Street
in 1839 calls it "... the late residence of the Honorable T. F. Mason
...". The house is still standing. (Deering Davis, Stephen P. Dorsey and
Ralph Cole Hall, _Alexandria Houses_, Cornwall, N.Y. Architectural Book
Publishing Co., Inc., 1946, pp. 88-89, 126; Benjamin Hallowell,
_Autobiography_, Philadelphia, Friends Book Association, 1884, pp.
95-120. _Alexandria Gazette_, August 30, 1839,; Alexandria Deed Book
V-2, p. 355(1835).)
_Huntley_, 6918 Harrison Lane, Groveton, Fairfax County. Still standing.
Though Huntley was built during Mason's ownership of the property, no
record has been found that he actually lived there.
_115 South St. Asaph Street_, Alexandria, is a two-and-one-half-story
brick structure over an English basement built about 1800, and still
standing. A sign on the structure says "Home of Thomas Mason, circa
1775." It was purchased by Mason in May of 1832, at about the same time
that he purchased the lot next door at 117 S. St. Asaph Street. A
three-story structure of the last quarter of the nineteenth century now
stands there. Mason may have been a tenant at 115 before his purchase,
but was already out of the house by November 8, 1833, when a Dr.
Wheelwright announced that he had "... removed to the house on St. Asaph
Street ... formerly occupied by Thomson F. Mason, Esq." (Deering Davis,
Stephen P. Dorsey & Ralph Cole Hall, _Alexandria Houses_, Cornwall,
N.Y., Architectural Book Publishing Co., Inc., 1946, p. 126; _Alexandria
Gazette_, November 8, 1833. Alexandria Deed Books: U-2, p. 27 (1832);
U-2, p. 29 (1832); and M-3, p. 646 (1852).)
This list includes only part of the real estate owned by Thomson Francis
Mason. He lived in the Cameron Street house during the 1820's. He may
have lived in either the Oronoco Street or St. Asaph Street houses
before he purchased them. At any rate, he purchased Colross, Hallowell
School and the St. Asaph Street houses in the decade before his death.
He died in 1838 and was buried at Colross. There are long periods of
time unaccounted for and probably many real estate transactions which
have not yet been documented.
Other Mason Houses
_Analostan_, home of General John Mason. Located on the Potomac River in
the District of Columbia on Theodore Roosevelt Island, known in the past
as Barbadoes, Mason's Island, or Analostan. Built in the 1790's, its
design is attributed to George Hadfield. General Mason sold the house
about 1833 and moved to Clermont. Parts of the Analostan house stood
until the 1930's when they were demolished by the Theodore Roosevelt
Memorial Association. (_Sunday Star_, Feb. 6, 1921, Rambler "... History
of Analostan Island;" _Star_, June 4, 1958, Rambler, "Revisits Analostan
Island;" _Virginia Record_, July 1956, p. 9, Mollie Somerville, "George
Mason's Island;" Rowland, _George Mason_, New York, Russell & Russell,
1892 and 1946, Vol I, p. 117; Harry F. Cunningham, Joseph A. Younger,
and J. Wilmer Smith, _Measured Drawings of Georgian Architecture in the
District of Columbia_, 1750-1820, New York, Architectural Book Company
1914, Sheets 58-61.)
_Clermont_, which was purchased by General John Mason and to which he
and his family moved in 1833. Site near Fairfax County-Alexandria line,
off Clermont Drive, near point where the Richmond, Fredericksburg &
Potomac tracks cross Cameron Run. It was demolished in the 19th Century.
("Diary of Miss Mason," beginning Sept. 20th 1833, property of Mrs.
Augustus Thorndike, partial copy in Gunston Hall archives (Analostan
file); Christine Gibson unpublished report, Fairfax County Public
Library, Virginiana Collection.)
_Gunston Hall_, home of George Mason IV, in Fairfax County. The house is
a one-and-one-half-story brick structure, with interiors by William
Buckland joiner and architect. In the garden is one of America's best
surviving stands of English Boxwood. The house still stands on Route
242, 4 miles southeast of Route 1, and south of Fort Belvoir. It is
owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and administered as an historic
house museum by a Board of Regents of the National Society of Colonial
Dames. (Thomas Tileston Waterman, _The Mansions of Virginia_, Chapel
Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1946.)
_Hollin Hall_, built for and occupied by General Thomson Mason, son of
George Mason IV of Gunston Hall, and father of T.F. Mason. It was a
two-story frame structure, which burned early in the nineteenth century.
Part of the complex may still exist, or be incorporated into the present
structure known as Little Hollin Hall at 1901 Sherwood Hall Lane, in
Fairfax County south of Alexandria. (Rowland, _George Mason_, New York,
Russell & Russell, 1892 and 1946, Volume II, pps. 307, 351, and numerous
others; _Hollin Hills Bulletin_, May 1969, June-July, 1969.)
_Lexington_, in Fairfax County, built for George Mason V, son of George
of Gunston Hall and uncle of T.F. Mason. The house stood on Mason Neck,
near Gunston Hall. The structure burned in the nineteenth century.
(Rowland, _George Mason_, New York, Russell & Russell, 1892 and 1946,
Volume I, p. 112; Edith Moore Sprouse, _Lexington_, unpublished report,
June 1967, Virginiana Files, Fairfax County Public Library.)
_Okeley_, home of Richard Chichester Mason, brother of T.F. Mason. The
structure was destroyed during the Civil War. It was located in Fairfax
County on S. Kings Highway, just south of Huntley. (Rowland, _George
Mason_, New York, Russell & Russell, 1892 and 1946, Volume II, p. 473;
_Alexandria Gazette_, March 30, 1841).
_Spring Bank_, owned by George Mason, son of William Mason and first
cousin of T.F. Mason. There may have been an earlier structure on the
site, but the house in which this George Mason lived is a two-story
brick structure, built about 1850, which is still standing. It is
located at Penn Daw in Fairfax County in the Spring Bank Trailer Park,
at the intersection of Kings Highway and the Jefferson Davis Highway
(Route 1). (Rowland, _George Mason_, New York, Russell & Russell, 1892
and 1946, Volume II, pps. 366, 369, and others.)
_Woodbridge_, home of Thomas, son of George of Gunston Hall, and uncle
of T.F. Mason. It stood in Prince William County almost directly across
Occoquan River from Colchester and was demolished prior to 1892.
(Rowland, _George Mason_, New York, Russell & Russell, 1892 and 1946,
Volume I, p. 112.)
APPENDIX B
CHAIN OF TITLE
1949--June 11, Deed Book 694, page 400: AUGUST & ELEANOR S. NAGEL
_to_ RANSOM G. AND MARGUERITE K. AMLONG.
1946--September 1, Deed Book 515, p. 60: ARMISTEAD L. BOOTH,
_executor under the will of_ ALBERT R. HARRISON _to_ AUGUST W. &
ELEANOR S. NAGEL.
1911--April 5, Liber J, No. 7, p. 22: CLARA B. HARRISON, UNMARRIED,
MARY C. HARRISON, UNMARRIED, ALBERT R. HARRISON, UNMARRIED, _first
part_, MARGARET N. HARRISON GIBBS AND HER HUSBAND J. NORMAN GIBBS,
_second part_. (Albert W. Harrison died intestate.)
1871--March 11, Liber O, No. 4, p. 338: NATHAN W. & SUSAN E.
PIERSON _to_ ALBERT W. HARRISON.
1868--November 21, Liber I, No. 4, p. 236: BENJAMIN KING _to_
ALBERT W. HARRISON AND NATHAN W. PIERSON OF NEW JERSEY.
1862--June 12, Liber E, No. 4, p. 195: JOHN A. SMITH _to_ BENJAMIN
KING.
1859--December 7, Liber B, No. 4, p. 451: JOHN FRANCIS MASON AND
ARTHUR PENDLETON MASON, _first part_, JOHN A. SMITH, _second part_,
BENJAMIN KING, U.S. ARMY, NOW RESIDING IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,
_third part_.
1859--November 7, Liber B, No. 4, p. 449: BETSEY C. MASON _to_ JOHN
FRANCIS MASON AND A. PENDLETON MASON, SONS OF THE SAID BETSEY C.
1859--November 7, Liber B, No. 4, p. 448: BETSEY C. MASON _to_ JOHN
FRANCIS MASON AND A. PENDLETON MASON, SONS OF THE SAID BETSEY C.
1839--February 4, Will Book T, No. 1, p. 3: "To all persons to whom
the presents shall come, greetings. Know ye that the last will and
testament of Thomson F. Mason of Alexandria County deceased hath
been in duo form of law exhibited, proved and recorded in the
Office of the Register of Wills of said County, a copy of which is
to these presents annexed and administration of all the goods,
chattles and credits of the deceased is hereby granted and
committed unto Betsey C. Mason, the Executrix of the said will
appointed...."
1839--February 18, Will Book T, No. 1, pp. 1-4: _Will of_ THOMSON
F. MASON. Will was dated December 14, 1838.
1825--Chancery Suit referenced in Liber W, No. 2, pp. 162-65:
THOMSON F. MASON _vs._ GEORGE W. MASON, RICH C. MASON, FAYETTE BALL
AND MARY HIS WIFE, GEORGE MASON AND HELLEN, JOHN, GEORGE, AND SALLY
MASON HIS INFANT CHILDREN AND SAMUEL DAWSON AND EUGENIA AND MASON
DAWSON HIS INFANT CHILDREN. (Suit was not located.)
1823--October 1, Liber W, No. 2, p. 199: THIS INDENTURE MADE THIS
FIRST DAY OF OCTOBER IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND
TWENTY THREE BETWEEN GEORGE M. MASON, AND MARY HIS WIFE, RICHARD C.
MASON AND LUCY B., HIS WIFE, GEORGE MASON OF GUNSTON, AND ELEANOR
ANN, HIS WIFE, ALL OF THE COUNTY OF FAIRFAX AND STATE OF VIRGINIA,
AND FAYETTE BALL AND MARY T. HIS WIFE AND SAMUEL DAWSON, BOTH OF
THE COUNTY OF LOUDOUN AND STATE AFORESAID, _all of the one part_,
AND THOMSON F. MASON OF THE TOWN OF ALEXANDRIA IN THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA, _of the other part_.
1820--November 21, Will Book M, No. 1, p. 130: _Will of_ THOMSON
MASON OF HOLLIN HALL, dated April 15 1797. The land on which
Huntley is located had come to Thomson by the will of his Father,
George Mason of Gunston Hall.
1792--August 23, Will Book F, pp. 104-105: Will of George Mason of
Gunston Hall granting lands to his son, Thomson Mason, which were
part of the Ball patent on both sides of the North Branch of Little
Hunting Creek.
1772--June 18, Deed Book K-1, p. 54: Sampson Darrell to George
Mason the lower part of a tract granted to John Ball by the
proprietors of the Northern Neck of Virginia in September, 1695;
willed to his son George Ball August 14, 1722; sold to John
Carlyle, March 17, 1742/43; sold to Sampson Darrell August 16,
1748.
LIST OF SOURCES
Books
Aikman, Lonnelle, =We the People=. Washington: U.S. Capitol
Historical Society, 1965.
Caemmerer, H. Paul. =Historic Washington.= Washington: Columbia
Historical Society, 1966.
Carne, William F. =Alexandria Business Book.= Alexandria: M. Hill
Co., 1897.
Cunningham, Harry F.; Younger, Joseph A.; and Smith, Wilmer.
=Measured Drawings of Georgian Architecture in the District of
Columbia, 1750-1820.= New York: Architectural Book Co., 1914.
Davis, Derring; Dorsey, Stephen P.; and Hall, Ralph Cole.
=Georgetown Houses of the Federal Period.= New York: Bonanza Books,
1944.
Gallagher, H.M. Pierce. =Robert Mills.= New York: Columbia
University Press, 1935.
Gordon, C.A. =History of the House of Gordon.= Aberdeen: D. Wyllie
& Son, 1890.
Gouverneur, Marian. =As I Remember.= New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1911.
Hallowell, Benjamin. =Autobiography.= Philadelphia: Friends Book
Association, 1884.
Hopkins, G.M. =Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Washington.=
Philadelphia: privately published, 1879.
Johnson, Allen; and Malone, Dumas, eds. =Dictionary of American
Biography.= New York: Charles Scribner, 1932.
Kimball, Fiske. =Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and
of the Early Republic.= New York: Charles Scribner Sons, 1922.
Mason, Stevens Thompson. =Mason Family Chart.= Baltimore: Privately
published, 1907.
Miller, Helen Hill. =George Mason Constitutionalist.= Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1938.
Nelligan, Murray H. =Custis-Lee Mansion.= Washington: National Park
Service, 1950.
Powell, Mary G. The =History of Old Alexandria Virginia.= Richmond:
William Byrd Press, 1928.
Rowland, Kate Mason. =The Life of George Mason.= New York: G.P.
Putnam's Sons, 1892, Volume II.
Schuon, Karl. =Home of the Commandants.= Washington: Leatherneck
Association, 1966.
Smoot, Mrs. Betty Carter. =Days in an Old Town.= Alexandria:
Privately printed, 1934.
Sprouse, Edith Moore. =Potomac Sampler.= Alexandria: privately
published, 1961.
Waterman, Thomas Tileston. =The Mansions of Virginia.= Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1946.
Articles
Bundy, Charles S., "History of the Office of the Justice of the
Peace." Washington: =Records of the Columbia Historical Society=.
1902.
Hunsberger, George S. "The Architectural Career of George
Hadfield," =Records of the Columbia Historical Society=, Vol.
51-52, 1955.
Norton, Paul F., "Design and Designer," =Historic Preservation=,
Volume 19, Nos. 3-4, July-December 1967.
Regis, Noel F. "Some Notable Suits in Early District Courts."
Washington: =Records of the Columbia Historical Society=, 1922.
Somerville, Mollie. "George Mason's Island," =Virginia Record=.
July, 1956.
Newspapers
=Alexandria Gazette=: November 24, 1817; March 13, 1823; August 5,
1828; November 1 & 8, 1833; May 16, 1837; December 27, 1838; August
30, 1839; June 12, 1862; October 12, 1864; May 13, 1868; May 3,
1870; May 16, 1870; May 14, 1892; March 3, 1911; January 1, 1930.
=Daily National Intelligencer=: February 13, 1826.
=Fairfax Herald=: March 10, 1911.
=New York Herald Tribune=: July 7, 1929.
=Syracuse (N.Y.) Journal=: July 28, 1875.
=Washington Sunday Star=: February 6, 1921; June 4, 1958.
Manuscripts
Nelligan, Murray H. "Custis-Lee Mansion." Unpublished manuscript.
National Park Service.
Sprouse, Edith Moore. "Lexington." Unpublished report, 1967.
Thomson Francis Mason Papers. Collection of William Francis Smith,
Alexandria, Virginia.
Thomson Francis Mason Papers. Duke University, Durham, N.C.
Legal Records
Fairfax County Courthouse, Deeds, Wills, Chancery Court Cases: Will
of George Mason, August 23, 1792; Will of Thomson Mason, April 15,
1797, Will Book M, No. 1, p. 130, November 21, 1820; Liber W, No.
2, p. 199. October 1, 1823; Liber W, No. 2, pp. 162-65; Will Book
T, No. 1, February 18, 1839; Will Book T, No. 1, p. 3, February 4,
1839; Liber B, No. 4, p. 448, November 7, 1859; Liber B, No. 4, p.
451, December 7, 1859; Liber E, No. 4, p. 195, June 12, 1862; Liber
I, No. 4, p. 236, November 21, 1868; Liber O, No. 4, p. 338, March
11, 1871; Liber J, No. 7, p. 22, April 5, 1911; Deed Book 515, p.
60, September 1, 1946; Deed Book 694, p. 400, June 11, 1949.
Division of Planning Publications Staff
Peter T. Johnson, Chief, Operations Branch
Stephen H. Lopez, Historic District Planner
Nan Netherton, Historic Research Supervisor
Elizabeth David, Research Assistant
Jay Linard, Copy Editor
Gloria Matthews, Book Designer
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