Map: Eighteenth Century Land Ownership

This map of local land ownership in the eighteenth century in the Braddock District area shows the original buyer's name for each land patent or grant. Ravensworth was the single largest land grant in Northern Virginia. William Fitzhugh, son of an English middle-class woolen draper purchased the roughly 22,000 acres in 1685. Although he lived in nearby King George County, he turned Ravensworth into one of the largest tobacco plantations in Northern Virginia, importing slaves and hiring overseers to work the property. Six generations of his family farmed there.

Map by George Mason University's Department of Geography GIS Center of Excellence, based on the companion map to Beginning at a White Oak...Patents and Northern Neck Grants of Fairfax County, Virginia by Beth Mitchell, circa 1977.

Copyright 2006 County of Fairfax. All rights reserved.

Oral History: Mayo Stuntz

Mayo Stuntz is a descendant of the Fitzhugh family who came to the area in the 1600s. Born in 1915, he traces his genealogy, childhood, and county history. He talks about growing up in the county and its historic sites. Mayo Stuntz is a founding member of the Fairfax County History Commission and he discusses the work of that body.

Oral History: Ruth Miller

Ruth Miller moved to the Braddock District from Flint, Michigan in 1961. A single mother of three, she taught elementary school. Ruth Miller discusses artifacts of earlier years and the changing geography of the community.

Oral History: Tawny Hammond

Tawny Hammond moved to Fairfax County in 1989 to work with the Fairfax County Park Authority. She discusses the nature of civic involvement in growing, diverse communities.

Oral History: Dan Cragg

Dan Cragg, former Braddock District History Commissioner, traces the history of Braddock District through stories about early families--the Fitzhughs and the Lees, among them. He traces the growth of the railroads through streets now occupied with houses, parks, and shopping facilities. Through careful research, Dan Cragg determined the original location of the Ravensworth mansion, constructed on the Fitzhugh tobacco plantation in 1797.

Ossian Hall

Nicholas Fitzhugh, a nephew of William of Chatham, built Ossian Hall in 1780, one of three large homes erected on Ravensworth plantation. Dr. David Stuart purchased Ossian Hall and 831 acres of land in 1804. Dr. Stuart's wife, Eleanor Calvert Custis, was the widow of Martha Washington's son, John, and the Stuarts frequently visited Mount Vernon. Washington appointed Stuart as a commissioner of Washington, D.C., when the city was established in 1791.

In 1918, Joseph L. Bristow, former U.S. Senator from Kansas (1909-1915), purchased Ossian Hall and several hundred acres and lived there until his death in 1944. Ossian Hall was abandoned, although various proposals floated to make the area and home into a state park or to create residential developments.

In 1959, upon the request of developers, the Annandale Fire Department burned the mansion in a controlled training exercise.

Photograph from Fairfax County Public Library, Virginia Room, Photographic Archive

Little Zion Baptist Church

In 1891, the Little Zion Baptist Church was built for $25 by freed slaves on land donated by Jack Pearson, a former slave of the Fitzhugh family.

The founding congregation was known as the Old School Baptist Group of Blacks and Whites. Reverend Lewis Henry Bailey, a former slave, was their first hired minister. Reverend Bailey was sold from a slave pen in Alexandria, Virginia to a Texas slave master, freed at the age of 21, and returned to Alexandria where he found his mother. Bailey learned to read and attended seminary with the help of a philanthropist in touch with the American Baptist Publishing Society. Lewis mortgaged his home for $25.00 to finance the new church. Today, in 2007, a Korean Presbyterian congretation meets in the original church building on Burke Lake Road.

Photo by Gilbert Donahue

Copyrighted material, not to be reproduced without permission of owner, Gilbert Donahue

Ashford House

In 1829, Mary Goldsborough inherited land from William Henry Fitzhugh and, in 1856, William Ashford purchased 20 of the Goldsborough acres. The property probably included at least one slave cabin. The Ashford House combines two log cabins, one made of chestnut, the other of pine. Ashford worked on a crew clearing county roads. Five of his nine children with wife, Hannah Ashford, were born in the house.

Photo by Gilbert Donahue

Copyrighted material, not to be reproduced without permission of owner, Gilbert Donahue