Welbourne’s Guest: The Man Who Coined the Term “Jazz Age”

Welbourne is one of Middleburg’s most recognizable porches, most beloved party venues, and a favorite among local history lovers. Few places in the Washington, D.C. metro area boast of original coach barns, stickball matches, icehouse foundations, or Civil War artillery officers’ signatures etched in the rippled glass windows. Welbourne has all that and then some. Having spent a night as an Inn guest (an honor you too can share), the ambiance is startlingly authentic; so much so, you end up leaving the following morning after a huge breakfast feeling a little like you’ve stepped out into the future.

While portraits of ancestors keep watch over mantles, the house has a significant aura of the early 20^th century too; Welbourne is not just the oil-painted faces of Civil War soldiers, but also the breeze of a Victrola and the clink of bourbon on the rocks on the porch. I would venture to say it was the spirit of Edwardians or the Jazz Age’s swell dolls that met me at the door at Welbourne more so than the imposing legacy of Colonel Richard Henry Dulany of the 7^th Virginia Cavalry.

The famous houseguest of July 1934 says it all,

“The house floated up suddenly through the twilight of rain. It was all there – the stocky central box fronted by tall pillars, the graceful one-story wings, the intimate gardens only half seen from the front, the hint of other more secret verandas to face the long southern outdoors.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Her Last Case (The Saturday Evening Post, November 3, 1934)

F. Scott Fitzgerald was adrift on a sea of gin in 1934, in need of a lifeboat to help with the delirium tremens. His editor, Maxwell Perkins at Scribner’s, sent him south – to Middleburg of all places. While minting the excesses of the era eternally with Jay Gatsby and naming the whole thing The Jazz Age, Fitzgerald needed simplicity, open air, and less gild. F. Scott Fitzgerald published the short story for The Saturday Evening Post, Her Last Case, tapping into some of his impressions from his sojourn at Welbourne. As you look at the home, the right-side one-story wing was Fitzgerald’s room during the summer of 1934.

The one-story wing on the right side of the house was where Fitzgerald stayed.

As The Great Gatsby has long been assigned reading in high school, it seems ever more amazing that the de facto recorder of the roaring twenties, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald himself, passed a respite here in the Heritage Area. When it comes to a writer prone to putting on the Ritz, there may not be a more fitting setting, anywhere, than Welbourne to feed the creative mind.

The Piedmont Heritage Area’s central location on the east coast, proximity to Washington, D.C., and the famed hunt country resulted in landscapes and buildings that have played an equally important host to not only cavalry but also those who need historic open space vistas, and yes, even whimsy. The very porch where F. Scott Fitzgerald sat ruminating and drafting stories is the same where Confederate cavalry officer General J.E.B. Stuart sat on horseback to have his breakfast during the Battle of Unison in November 1862. This fact was not lost on Fitzgerald,

It was an old town – an old church, an old courthouse, old frame or stone houses; over the main street hung the usual iron sign:
HERE A SQUADRON OF STUART’S CAVALRY FOUGHT A FIERCE ENGAGEMENT WITH –
She read only that – there had been such signs all along the road.
Her Last Case

Another writer in need of Welbourne, according to his editor Maxwell Perkins at Scribner’s, was Thomas Wolfe, the wordy North Carolinian famous for “Look Homeward, Angel” and for paving the way for the Beat Generation. Wolfe stayed at Welbourne in October 1934 and would go on to publish “The House of the Far and Lost,” drawn from his stay among the cavalry battlefields and foxhunts. Wolfe very aptly captures the certain something that is the aura of Welbourne (or as he calls it, Malbourne):

…the House at Malbourne in the hunting district of Virginia. The house in its general design is not unlike the one at Mt Vernon save that it is situated in a hollow rather than on a hill….. it yet surpasses it in warmth and naturalness. An air of ease and homely comfort has pervaded every line; and even the somewhat rambling and haphazard changes and additions of a century of use have served only to enhance the noble dignity of the old house. The place is warm with life.And in this grand and spacious landscape too moon-haunted, silent as it is, there is a kind of sadness, a solemn and yet tragic stateliness – the ghost of something gone forevermore.
The House of the Far and Lost, 1934

So, what is the missing connection between these famed writers who rubbed elbows with Ernest Hemingway and Edith Wharton and the porch of Middleburg’s Welbourne? Miss Elizabeth Lemmon, the very close friend of their editor, Maxwell Perkins. Miss Lemmon lived at the Church House, next door to her sister Frances Morison (Mrs. Nathaniel Holmes Morison) at Welbourne. Maxwell Perkins sent his troubled writers to her rural Virginia escape, entrusting the Morison family to deliver plots, storylines, or maybe just rest. Mission achieved in both cases.

A typical statement in some of the Piedmont Heritage Area’s programming is that if Civil War Battlefields don’t hold much interest for you, there is certainly enough other history here to find something that will ignite a spark of further appreciation of history. Welbourne is a time capsule that offers up the rare glimpse of the Civil War literally happening right on the front porch as well as the syncopated first steps into the modern era. While on appearances it is a grand historic home, one that makes you think of Mt. Vernon or places one purchases a guided tour ticket. Welburne, however, is very real and welcoming. How better to digest history than to sit exactly where the teenaged Dulany daughters sat watching Major John Pelham’s artillery move down Welbourne Road or sitting in the same parlor with the same furniture where the family sat listening to the radio on the day that will live in infamy. Talk about authenticity.

Riders heading past Welbourne during our recent history trail ride (Photo by Douglas Lees)

Crednal, “a small brick house with a yard”

Completed by 1820, the DeButts’ 5 bay brick mansion became the home of Virginia statesman John Armistead Carter and his son, cavalry commander Richard Welby Carter. The legacy of this estate was made during the antebellum years and the Civil War, but it endures in communities across the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area, including the historically black villages of St. Louis and Willisville.

The property now called Crednal, and long associated with the Carter family, has its beginnings in the 18th century as a tenant farm owned by Benjamin Tasker Dulany, Jr. Like many tracts in southwestern Loudoun, it was leased to a farmer who improved the plot using forced labor. By 1785 about a dozen enslaved workers were at the property, owned and overseen by a white man living in a small, one and a half story stone residence. A generation later, Richard Welby DeButts and his wife Louisa Dulany expanded the residence to the brick edifice we see today. A sizable and well-furnished home on some 1,000 acres, a wealthy Tidewater visitor rather dismissively described it as ‘a small brick home with a yard’ when he came to the area in 1866.

Crednal as it appears today, with later additions flanking the c. 1820 home

Richard Welby died a few years into his marriage to Louisa Dulany, who then lived in the home with her second husband, Edward Hall, and their children from both marriages. Richardetta DeButts, daughter of Louisa and Richard, married Virginia statesman and Fauquier resident John Armistead Carter in 1834. They probably moved into the home around 1845, and the estate was likely named ‘Crednal’ during this time. The name is an homage to the Carter roots in Credenhill, Herefordshire, England. John Armistead Carter is perhaps best known as one of Loudoun’s two delegates to the 1861 Virginia Secession Convention in Richmond, alongside Convention President and Leesburg resident, John Janney. Carter was steadfast in his refusal to vote for secession. A lawyer and former member of the state legislature, Carter believed that states did not have the authority to secede from the union. Still, as a Virginia native and an enslaver, Carter supported the Confederate cause during the Civil War.

Carter’s VMI graduate son, Richard Welby Carter, organized a cavalry company in Spring 1861, which became Company H of the 1st VA Cavalry. The young Carter was already an accomplished horseman, having won a number of the prizes at his cousin R H Dulany’s inaugural Union Colt & Horse Show in 1853 (later renamed the Upperville Colt & Horse Show.) Carter served throughout the war, having a horse shot out from under him, being imprisoned multiple times, and rising to the rank of Colonel. Crednal itself saw action during the war, notably during 1862’s Battle of Unison, and 1863’s Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. The Civil War’s most lasting scars are evidenced by what we don’t see at Crednal. In December 1864 General Wesley Merritt’s infamous Burning Raid claimed mills, barns, stables, corn cribs, and fields across Loudoun Valley. Determined to smoke out Mosby’s Rangers and destroy the livelihood and morale of the residents, the raid is most likely responsible for the destruction of the antebellum outbuildings.

One remaining feature is the Carter family cemetery, which includes the graves of John Armistead Carter, Richardetta DeButts Carter, and several others. The enslaved cemetery lies about 50 yards away.

There are, however, other important hallmarks of Crednal’s past and its dissolution as a plantation following the Civil War. In 1860, John Armistead Carter is listed as owning 26 enslaved people at Crednal, most of whom were probably field hands. Together with the enslaved populations of nearby Welbourne and Catesby, about 100 people lived in bondage in the immediate area. These families were as intertwined as the Dulanys, Carters, and DeButts were. They knew the landscape, they survived the clash of warring nations, and on the other side of war they began to build anew.

Willisville residents Adolphus Hampton (1860-1912) and his wife Mary Florence Jackson Hampton (1869-1929)

The Jackson and Evans families bought small acreage to the west of Crednal alongside Henson and Lucinda Willis, ‘near Clifton.’ The community, which named itself Willisville, asked John Armistead Carter for support to build the 1868 schoolhouse. George Evans was the village’s first pastor. His wife Julia was likely born at Crednal and was buried there as well. While she was born into slavery, she was buried a free woman. Hers is the only carved headstone in the enslaved cemetery. To the east of Crednal, St. Louis boasted 14 families, many formerly living in slave quarters on nearby plantations. Though modest, these villages show the prosperity and opportunity of postwar life. Both Willisville and St. Louis are active communities to this day and are well worth a visit.

“Found under the standard of their country”, The Parker Family and the Retreat

Visitors to today’s Cool Spring Battlefield may be familiar with the sight of the Retreat, a turn of the 19^th century home on the eastern bank of the Shenandoah. Few are familiar with its earliest owners, the Parker family of Essex and Westmoreland Counties. But the Parkers have a legacy that reaches far beyond the Heritage Area.

View of the 1799 Retreat, or Soldier’s Retreat

The Retreat was built in 1799 by Thomas Parker, the grandson of Dr. Alexander Parker who was a physician and sheriff of Essex County in the mid 18th century. Thomas and three of his brothers served as officers in the Revolutionary War. Richard, Alexander, and Thomas, served in the infantry while their brother William Harwar Parker served as a lieutenant and captain in the Virginia State Navy. Col. Richard Parker would be shot through the head during the Siege of Charleston, but the rest of the Parker sons survived the war.

Thomas volunteered to serve his country three more times in his life. In 1794 when George Washington called for militia support to quash the Whiskey Rebellion, Thomas was aide de camp for Major General Daniel Morgan. Around this time Parker purchased some 1,100 acres of farmland along the Shenandoah from John Wormsley of Cool Spring Farm. It’s during this period that Parker built the Retreat, though he didn’t have long to enjoy it before war brewed again. In the 1799 quasi-war with France, General Alexander Hamilton tasked Thomas Parker, now a colonel, to lead the 8th US Infantry and to supply three regiments with winter quarters at Harpers Ferry. There were too few uniforms, not enough money to pay the paymasters, and not enough wood in Harpers Ferry to build the huts as George Washington advised. Fortunately for Col. Parker, the matter was resolved by convention the following spring. He served again as a Colonel in the War of 1812, leading troops of the 12th US Infantry in the Canadian campaign that culminated at Lundy’s Lane. Parker thought himself overlooked for a promotion in 1813 and wrote indignantly to James Madison about the matter. For his many years of service Thomas Parker was retroactively promoted to Brigadier General, effective March 12, 1813.

Having Fought & Bled in the Service of my Country from the year Seventy Six to the End of our Revolutionary war, with the approbation of my Superiors; Having Subsequently aided (as an Aid de Camp to majr Genl Morgan,) in Suppressing a dangerous Insurrection in ninety four, Having also been Honoured with the Command of a Regiment in the year ninety nine & Eighteen hundred when our Country was threatned with a french war, & Lastly having been actively Employed for more than Twelve months without one days Respite; Either in the field or in Recruiting my Regiment; I Cannot but feel myself Injured by Having Junior officers placed over my head . . .
Col. Thomas Parker to James Madison, April 23, 1813

After Thomas Parker passed away, his property conveyed first to his widow, then to their nephew, Richard Elliott Parker. Born in 1783, Richard was the son of William Harwar Parker, an officer in the Virginia State Navy during the Revolutionary War. Richard studied law under his grandfather and had already served as a state legislator when the War of 1812 broke out. Richard served as a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia, guarding the coast from British attack. While serving an important role, Richard longed for the glory and action of battlefields in the north and west.

. . I recollect during the American Revolution every relation I had on Earth old enough to draw a sword, and not too old to wield it, were found under the standard of their country, when I know that at this moment, almost every one are by land or water maintaining their violated rights and avenging our insulted honor I should be an alien to their blood and unworthy the proud name ‘Virginia’ if I did not aspire to the same distinction.
Richard Parker to Virginia Governor James Barbour, July 6, 1813

After the war Richard returned to life as a lawyer, relocating to the Retreat. In 1836 he became the first man from the newly-formed Clarke County to serve as a Senator, but left the post after a few months to accept a seat on the Virginia Supreme Court. He died a few years later in 1840, and the Retreat passed to his son, also named Richard E. Parker.

The younger Richard Parker was born in 1810 and went into the family business, practicing law in Berryville. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1848, and in 1851 became judge of the 13th district circuit court in Virginia, a post he held for nearly twenty years. It is in this capacity that Judge Parker became part of one of the most dramatic court cases of the 19th century: the trial of John Brown. Even though John Brown’s failed raid took place on Federal land, Virginia’s governor Wise ordered that Brown be tried in the Virginia court system, in nearby Charles Town (now West Virginia.) The trial only lasted three days. On October 31, 1859 the jury declared John Brown guilty and on November 2 Judge Parker sentenced him to death.

While Richard Parker himself remained a civilian during the Civil War that broke out, three of his cousins enlisted. Foxhall A. Parker served in the US Navy, eventually becoming a commodore and then Commandant of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His writings became textbooks at the academy for generations. Dangerfield Parker was an officer with the US Infantry who became brevet major after being wounded at Gettysburg in 1863. William Harwar Parker resigned his post in the US Navy in 1861 to join the Confederacy. He became the lieutenant and superintendent of the Patrick Henry, a floating naval academy. The three warring Parker brothers are a fascinating reminder of the Civil War being fought ‘brother against brother’.

Sweet Home Atoka

If you find yourself driving between Winchester, Leesburg, and Warrenton, odds are at some point you’ll drive through Atoka, historically known as Rector’s Crossroads. A key intersection since the early 19th century, it’s also the home of MHAA headquarters. You will find a handful of historic buildings here, as well as a Civil War Trails sign to tell you more about the conflict here. When you stop by for a visit, here’s what you’ll see in our tiny hamlet.

Atoka owes much, if not all, of its history to the highway it once straddled. For over 200 years Ashby’s Gap Turnpike/State Rt. 50 ran right through town. This tiny village saw stage coaches, slave coffles, adventurers, rebels, yankees, and automobiles travel between Alexandria, Winchester, and Marshall, before being bypassed by the US highway system in 1957. A generation later the Atoka Preservation Society was formed to save the crossroads from development and to preserve its historic buildings. In 2014 the Society gifted the Rector House and Angus Brown House to the Heritage Area, along with the responsibilities of maintaining the homes and interpreting Atoka’s history.

Rector’s Lane follows the grade of the original Turnpike, and was bypassed in 1957

The Caleb Rector House was built in 1801, with several additions made over the centuries. A traditional Quaker stone house, the original property included several outbuildings and a stone springhouse. The springhouse still stands across the road from the main home, and was used by Rectors, enslaved workers, Civil War soldiers, and travelers over the years. The home is named for Caleb Rector, who lived in the home with his wife Mary Ann by 1861. In the years before the Civil War at least eight enslaved people lived at the property. Caleb and Mary Ann’s son, Caleb Jr., joined the local Confederate cavalry after war broke out. Caleb Jr. was captured at Yellow Tavern s in 1864 and died in Point Lookout POW Camp in Maryland. The Rector House’s biggest claim to fame came on June 10, 1863 when John Singleton Mosby formalized his partisan group as the 43rd Virginia Cavalry inside the Rectors’ parlor. With orders to run a special unit using selected Confederate cavalrymen housed in willing local “safe houses,” Mosby’s men regularly gathered at the crossroads for raids on Union troops and supplies. This is also where JEB Stuart received orders before Gettysburg, inspiring his infamous ride. The home remained in Rector family possession until the 1980’s. Many still remember sitting on the porch, watching passers by, and drinking cool sodas from the Rectors’ store across the street. Now the Rector House is home to MHAA offices and is open to visitors (please call to make an appointment!) Recently, a fascinating artifact was discovered in the attic here- a pillow constructed from the WWI uniform of resident and veteran Maurice Bryant Rector.

The Blacksmith lies to the right of the store, on the north side of the street. This unassuming white clapboard structure was built in 1927 as a gas station. Before the Civil War stood the gas station’s predecessor, a blacksmith shop. Reputedly run by a fellow named Davis, civilian travelers and soldiers alike would have used the services of the blacksmith at this crucial crossroads. The smith’s location next to a spring made it a perfect “pit stop”. It was one of the reasons Mosby often selected Rector’s Crossroads for a rendezvous. Behind the store, the blacksmith’s simple four-room house still stands on private property.

The Store and restaurant that stands on the north side of Rector’s lane was built in 1892, but records show a store and post office having stood on this site as early as 1838. Visitors and residents could purchase stage coach tickets for turnpike trips between Alexandria and Winchester from the postmaster, Elijah Anderson. In 1892, the US Postmaster General declared that post office names should match their railway stops, and that both should match their town names. Nearby Rectortown already had a railway stop, so to prevent further confusion “Rector’s Crossroads” changed its name to Atoka. Though the post office came and went, the new name stuck. The store is now home to Pizzatoka, a local landmark in itself.

The Angus Brown House, next to the store, is not named for a former occupant. Though the log home was built circa 1830, it received its moniker thanks to the 1863 battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. In the field opposite the house on June 21, 1863, Angus Brown’s 1^st South Carolina Cavalry made a stand, having fallen back from the ridge on the east side of the village. Brown was buying time for General J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry and horse artillery to get across the four-arch stone turnpike bridge over Goose Creek just to the northwest. The stand succeeded in buying time, but at the cost of Angus Brown’s life. The house served as office space for local non-profits for some time before becoming a private home again.

An inside view of the Brown House, showing some original timbers on the walls and ceiling

Kaos, aka The Deane House was built by storekeeper Asa Rector in 1893. This commodious Victorian home is the newest home in the Atoka Historic District. Some of the outbuildings behind the Deane house are most likely original to the Rector House’s property, and would have included things like a smoke house and enslaved quarters.

When is the last time you stopped by Atoka? Call ahead to schedule a tour of the Rector House, or come any time to see the tiny settlement we call home.

Aldie’s Eleanor Truax Harris: “One of Virginia’s Best Citizens”

Eleanor Truax was born in 1869 to US Army Captain Sewall Truax, a Civil War Union veteran, and Sarah Chandler Truax, both born Canadians, but raised as New Englanders. After the Civil War, Major and Mrs. Truax were stationed at Fort Lapwai in the Idaho Territory with the US Army, preventing prospective miners from invading the Nez Perce Reservation during the 1860s gold rush. Major Truax ran a general store on the Reservation prior to the family’s departure for his next post, facilitating the building of a road through the Lolo Pass, a former Nez Perce trail crossed by Lewis and Clark in 1805. Eleanor Truax grew up in the wild northwest, among the rough and tumble manifest destiny of frontier culture, neighboring with Native Americans, prospectors, career soldiers, and rugged terrain.

Eleanor Truax became a teacher in Spokane, Washington, where she married and was widowed very suddenly at a young age. Mining stock from her late husband gave Eleanor financial security, which allowed her to grieve in Europe, studying foreign languages, music, and culture until the onset of the Spanish-American War brought the family back to Walla Walla, Washington. There she met Captain Floyd Harris who was training troops preparing to depart for the Philippines, before embarking himself to join General Arthur MacArthur as an aide-de-camp. They started writing each other and later married in Hong Kong in 1900.

In the early years of their marriage the Harrises raised their children in Manila, England’s Lake District, and Vienna, where Col. Harris served at the court of Emperor Franz Joseph. Mrs. Harris joined the Royal Horticultural Society of London and fell in love with England’s narcissus, or daffodil, relating to the Lake Poets, especially Wordsworth who canonized the flower with his 1815 “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”

And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth (1815)

In 1907, the Harrises returned to America in search of an inspiring weekend retreat, which they found in Aldie at Stoke. Mrs. Harris immediately upon seeing Stoke, stated “This is home.”

It became more than just a weekend home. She went straight to work transforming the grounds into terraced gardens with hedges of boxwood and rows of daffodils, breathing European flair into this historic Virginia farm, formerly owned by the Berkeley family of longstanding Virginia pedigree. Eleanor worked with Beaux Arts architect Nathan Wyeth to renovate and expand the 1840 Greek Revival home into a Renaissance Revival estate. Nathan Wyeth later would design a bevy of the Embassy buildings and official residences in Washington, D.C., in addition to the D.C. Armory, and the West Wing of the White House. They together accomplished a simpatico blending of the two eras of Stoke into such a stunning masterpiece which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. In addition to its architectural design, the register accepted the nomination because of the legacy of Eleanor Truax Harris and her contributions to horticulture.

Eleanor Harris created the Berkeley Nurseries at Stoke, which became the Narcissus Test Gardens for the Garden Club of Virginia. She nurtured and hybridized daffodils and as the Garden Club of Virginia’s publication Garden Gossip stated, she introduced daffodils to the general Virginia gardener who may previously have given them little notice. Mrs. Harris predicted Holland bulbs would be embargoed by the United States in 1925 due to Dutch Elm Disease, and she arranged large shipments of bulbs to beautify the village of Aldie and its surrounding homes with daffodils. Mrs. Harris founded the Aldie Horticultural Society in 1923 with her group of fellow gardeners who also planted the imported bulbs, giving them the nickname of the “Aldie Bulb Growers.” This later enabled Aldie families struggling financially during the 1930s to make money selling cut flowers that were taken by train from The Plains, Virginia to New York City. Women seldom could assist in providing income in upper-class homes, due to social mores and tradition, but in this instance, Mrs. Harris provided an outlet for women to engage in industry without undue judgment. Her boxwood cuttings also made their impact on the surrounding countryside. The Garden Club of Virginia noted in 1937 that: “The renaissance in box was largely due to Mrs. Harris. She loved this beautiful evergreen and grew acres of different varieties with extraordinary success.”

At her passing in 1937, editor Douglas Southall Freeman wrote of Mrs. Harris in the Richmond News Leader

“The gracious obituary of Mrs. Eleanor Truax Harris we had the pleasure of printing Saturday did not overstate the services of one of Virginia’s best citizens…. Her home, Stoke, at Aldie, not only is one of the most beautiful places in Virginia but also was the seat of a hospitality and a kindly culture that enriched thousands.”
Richmond News Leader, April 9, 1937

Eleanor Truax Harris was the spouse of a well-regarded statesman with an accomplished career, but she established her own fame and legacy. A generous, community-minded woman, Mrs. Harris brought a quintessentially American strength and toughness mixed with a sophisticated European sensibility to Aldie. She was the perfect match to Col. Harris, and was equally comfortable in the high courts of Europe and the hills of Virginia. Her flair, vision for improvement and beautification all speak to Mrs. Harris’ artistic character; the daffodil imprimatur she left blooming in her beloved village speaks to her continuing presence and legacy.

Roosevelt’s Ride

Teddy Roosevelt has gone down as one of the biggest personalities to serve as President of the United States. He overcame childhood illness and went on to carefully cultivate an image of strength and ruggedness as a war hero and outdoorsman. As president he championed a number of conservation issues, anti-trust legislation, and a strong foreign policy. During the last weeks of his presidency, however, his attention turned to another issue – the physical fitness and preparedness of America’s military officers. Roosevelt proposed a series of physical challenges that all military officers would have to complete annually. Officers could choose to undergo an 80 mile ride on horseback, 100 miles by bike, or 50 miles by foot, but had to complete their journey in three days. Although Roosevelt thought the requirement reasonable, the order was widely protested throughout the armed forces. Undeterred, the President decided to make an example out of himself.

Roosevelt, along with his Rough Riders and other US Volunteers during the Spanish-American War.

In January, 1909, Roosevelt planned a ride that would take him 100 miles by horseback in a single day. Three officers would accompany him on the ride: Captain Archibald W. Butt, his military advisor, Admiral Presley M. Rixey, Surgeon General of the Navy, and Lieutenant Cary T. Grayson, a Navy Doctor who served on the Presidential Yacht. Their destination would be Warrenton, Virginia, which lay about 50 miles from the White House. Both Grayson and Rixey were Virginia natives, and knew the route well.

Cary Grayson, who accompanied Roosevelt, was an accomplished equestrian. He later rose to the rank of Rear Admiral and was the physician to Woodrow Wilson.

The Preseident woke at 2:30 AM on the morning of January 13th. The weather was bitterly cold, and a blizzard had been forecast for later in the day. Unfazed by the weather, Roosevelt breakfasted on steak and coffee and underwent a brief physical exam before joining his companions at the White House gates. The four men mounted their horses at 3:40 AM and set out into the winter darkness. Within ten minutes they had crossed into Virginia.

Their route took them along good roads to Falls Church, but the going got tough as they pressed on to Fairfax, where the deeply rutted roads were frozen solid. The party reached Fairfax Courthouse around 6:30, and made a short stop to change horses. The President was dismayed to find that his favorite horse, Georgia, was not there waiting for him, and had to make do with an Army mount from nearby Fort Myer. With fresh horses the group moved at a trot towards Centerville, the halfway mark of their journey to Warrenton, and they changed horses for a second time between Centerville and the old Manassas battlefield. As they rode across the battlefield, Roosevelt supposedly quipped about the spirits of the long dead Union soldiers, and what they might think of him riding alongside three southerners.

Although the ride was planned in secret, it was impossible to keep it confidential for long. As the sun rose, passers by recognized the President. When the group rode through the village of New Baltimore, a merchant recognized Roosevelt and phoned ahead to friends in Warrenton. The rumor was confirmed when town residents noticed Secret Service guards gathering at the Warren Green Hotel, where the group would take their lunch. By the time Roosevelt and his companions arrived in Warrenton, a group of several hundred had gathered to get a look at the President. Roosevelt indulged them with a quick address before sitting down to a lunch with Commodore John Wise, a Warrenton resident and old friend of Roosevelt’s from the Spanish-American War. The President hurriedly drank two cups of tea and some soup as a number of town dignitaries were introduced. In little more than an hour after their arrival, the party was back in the saddle and on their return to Washington.

The Warren Green Hotel, where Roosevelt and his compatriots lunched.

While the journey out had been relatively uneventful, the return would be far more difficult. As the group changed horses again, they found their new mounts were increasingly unruly. Captain Butt’s horse “fought the bit the entire way” and narrowly missed kicking Lieutenant Grayson. Then, as they neared Centerville and the halfway point, the weather turned ugly. The blizzard brought howling winds that blew sleet into the faces of the riders as they moved along the rutted roads. Ice caked on the President’s glasses, nearly blinding him.

As the cold and exhausted riders came into Fairfax they were met by an enthusiastic crowd that cheered them on, despite the weather. Buoyed by the crowd and fresh mounts, they pressed on into the increasing darkness. Roosevelt had hoped to be back at the White House by 7:00 PM, but as the sun set and the weather turned to snow, it became clear that this goal was impossible. The roads improved somewhat as they got closer to the city, but in many places the riders had to tread carefully on the icy streets. At one point the President’s horse went into a ditch, but both horse and rider were uninjured. It must have been a tremendous relief when the lights of Washington were finally visible on the horizon.

As they rode on towards the Aqueduct Bridge a carriage approached from Washington, ready to carry the President the rest of the way. Not one to appear weak, Roosevelt dismissed the carriage, declaring that “By George, we will make it to the White House with our horses if we have to lead them.” Gingerly navigating the ice covered streets of the Capital, the group rounded onto Pennsylvania Avenue. At the sight of the White House they broke into a gallop, and passed through the gates at 8:40 PM. Edith Roosevelt greeted the weary, snow-caked men at the door and urged them inside. After another physical examination, the president treated his fellow riders to a julep. Despite their hardships of their 17 hour ride, he exclaimed “What has surprised me more than anything on this ride is the fact that no one has said a cross word, that we have had a good time, and that we returned laughing. … if we had not met this sleet storm, it would have been like taking candy from a child.”

Rusticating and Vegetating: Wallis Simpson in the Heritage Area

Bessie Wallis Warfield was born in 1896 in a hotel cottage in rural Pennsylvania. Despite her humble birth and her father’s death a few months later, Bessie Wallis nevertheless enjoyed a childhood of relative ease in her wealthy uncle’s home in Baltimore. As a young girl he financed her education at the prestigious Oldfields school, where she befriended members of the Kirk and Du Pont families. During her time at Oldfields Bessie Wallis became enamored with her young basketball coach, Charlotte Noland. A native of the Middleburg area, both Charlotte and her sister Rosalie taught at the school. Wallis remembered ‘Miss Charlotte’ as “A marvelous horsewoman, and dashing in every setting.”¹

Bessie Wallis Warfield and her mother, Alice Montague Warfield

From about 1910-1913 Wallis (she dropped ‘Bessie’ by the time she was a teenager) spent part of every summer at Miss Charlotte’s summer camp for girls, hosted at the Noland family home of Burrland. The girls rode, played tennis, and took carriage rides across the countryside – often to visit the Tabbs at Glen Ora. Miss Charlotte’s handsome cousin Lloyd Tabb was often tasked with driving the girls from one place to another, a situation which delighted the young pupils. Fifteen years later her school and camp connections would help Wallis through her first divorce from Win Spencer.

Burrland, built for Cuthbert Powell Noland and Rosalie Haxall Noland. Charlotte Haxall Noland hosted girls like Wallis for annual summer camps before she founded Foxcroft School in 1914.

It was during her “divorce years”, 1925-1927, that Wallis spent the most time in the Virginia piedmont. By 1925 she had been married for nine years and had traveled across America and Europe, and spent time in China. Dissatisfied with her alcoholic and absent husband Win Spencer, the couple agreed to divorce. Virginia required $300 and a period of separation to file. Wallis decided that self-imposed exile to Fauquier’s countryside would be an appropriate price to pay to regain her independence. She did not necessarily relish the prospect. “For a woman seeking a divorce,” she later wrote, “the price also included the prospect of being voluntarily buried alive for two years.”² She chose to be ‘buried alive’ in room 212 of the Warren Green Hotel, a spot popular with travelling salesmen. The decor was passe, and she shared a hall bath with the other residents, but it wasn’t all bad. It was a period of decided calm in Wallis’ life, and she later reflected that for the most part “I mostly rusticated and when I wasn’t rusticating I vegetated with equal satisfaction.”³ She followed local hunts and the Virginia Gold Cup, often with Hugh Armistead Spilman.

Spilman, also a resident at the Warren Green, was apparently very taken with Wallis. A mutual friend insisted that Spilman kept a large photo of Wallis hung on his wall, and that he would kiss it whenever he passed by. Another long-held Fauquier legend is that Wallis would hang a scarf from her balcony as a clandestine invitation for Spilman to visit her room⁴. Alas, he didn’t have the ambition or lifestyle Wallis was looking for in a second husband. Newly divorced, and recently shut out of her uncle’s will, Wallis was pragmatic about her prospects. She poked fun at the hapless Spilman, suggesting he never read anything other than the Daily Racing Forum, and when he asked her to marry him her response was, “I’m poor, you’re poor. We both need money.”

Once her divorce from Win Spencer was finalized in 1927 she moved on to New York City and married a wealthy businessman, Ernest Simpson. It was through Ernest that she was introduced to English society and, eventually Edward, Prince of Wales. She enjoyed being his favorite, and their relationship played an obvious part in the dissolution of her marriage to Simpson, but still she urged Edward (or David, as she called him) not to revoke his claim to the throne for her sake. As history tells us, he did so anyways.

Wallis Simpson’s presentation at court, 1931

Because of the couples’ Nazi sympathies, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were sent westward to the Bahamas during World War II. The Duke’s governorship of the Bahamas was akin to an exile, and they only ventured from the islands a couple of times during the war. In 1941 they visited Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and made time for one more visit to friends in the Fauquier area. Their whirlwind tour included visits with well-to-do friends at Oakwood, Prospect Hill, Wakefield, and Foxcroft School. They also visited Clovelly, which was being used as a safehouse for British refugee children at the time⁵. Wallis, always ambitious and rarely sentimental, did not comment on the great changes in her life over the last thirty-odd years that took her away from and back to the piedmont. Though nearly 100 years has passed since Wallis’ ‘divorce years’ at the Warren Green Hotel, plenty of others have since discovered that the Heritage Area is still a great place for ‘rusticating and vegetating.’

Sebba, Anne. (2012) That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor: Macmillan, 13
Morton, Andrew. (2018) Wallis in Love: The Untold True Passion of the Duchess of Windsor. New York, New York: Grand Central Publishing
Morton
Toler, John, “Wallis Warfield in Warrenton, and Beyond” News and Notes from the Fauquier Historical Society, Vol. 2. No. 2., 1
Toler, 6

The Heroes of Brandywine

The Brandywine Valley of southeast Pennsylvania is a long way from the Heritage Area, but despite the distance they share some similarities. Both regions are well known centers of equestrian sports, and host numerous races, hunts, and other events. Both feature a remarkably preserved landscape of rolling hills, historic farms, and lanes lined with stone walls. Both areas are also bound by a shared history that dates to September 11^th, 1777, when men from the northern Virginia Piedmont sacrificed themselves along Brandywine Creek in order to save their new nation.

Rural Chester County, not far from where the Battle of Brandywine was fought

In the summer of 1777, a British Army under General Sir William Howe landed in the northern end of Chesapeake Bay with the intention on taking the American capital at Philadelphia and dealing a fatal blow to the Revolutionary cause. Not only could he capture the political center of the rebellion and disperse the Continental Congress, but it also offered an opportunity to bring George Washington’s army into a climactic battle where it could be destroyed once and for all.

Howe would get his opportunity on September 11^th, when Washington took up a position along the banks of Brandywine Creek to protect the capital from capture. Among the nearly 15,000 troops in Washington’s army were the soldiers of the 3^rd Virginia Regiment. Raised the previous year, the 3^rd Virginia was recruited out of northern Virginia, and particularly among Fauquier, Prince William, and Loudoun Counties. The officers who served in the regiment read like a who’s-who of the region, including Thomas Marshall (father of future Chief Justice), future president James Monroe, future generals Hugh Mercer and George Weedon, and William Washington (a cousin of the Commander in Chief). Others were locally prominent men, like Charles West of West’s Ordinary near Aldie, and John Ashby, whose family gave their name to Ashby’s Gap. The regiment had already seen hard service in the war, fighting around New York City the previous summer and taking part in the legendary Battles of Trenton and Princeton. Now numbering some 200 men and officers, the 3^rd Virginia was about to face their greatest test of the war.

Recognizing the strength of Washington’s position on the high banks of Brandywine Creek, Howe sent a feint towards the crossing at Chadd’s Ford, while taking the bulk of his army north on a 17 mile march to flank the Continental position. As British and German forces began to appear on his flank, Washington moved to react. He desperately needed to buy time to reposition his army and counter this new threat. The regiment chosen to slow the British advance was the 3^rd Virginia. They were in for the fight of their lives.

The Virginians took up an advanced position in the woodlot of the Samuel Jones Farm, near the intersection of modern Birmingham and Street Roads. Facing off against them were the cream of the Crown forces – British light infantry and Hessian Jaegers. The men of these formations were chosen for their fitness, marksmanship, and ability to endure hardship. Advancing in a loose, open formation, they fired with deadly accuracy as they quickly closed with the 3^rd Virginia. In the skirmishing that followed the British advance was repulsed, but they would soon return, backed by the full might of Howe’s army.

The renewed British advance drove the Virginians from the Jones farm and south to the grounds of the Birmingham Meeting House, where they took up a position in and around the Quaker burying ground. For nearly an hour they held their ground against the best the British army could throw against them. With a frontal assault against the Virginians stalled, the British infantry extended to their right and left to flank the Meetinghouse. At the last possible moment, the Virginians slipped away from their position and rearward to take their place with the main Continental battle line. They had accomplished their mission, however. They had bought the time Washington needed.

The Birmingham Meeting House, which stood at the center of the fighting that day.

As the 3^rd Virginia fell back towards the Continental line, they passed a brigade of Pennsylvanians rushing into position. They were being spurred on by the Marquis de Lafayette, taking part in his first battle. Shortly after advancing to meet the British, the young Frenchman would fall, wounded in the leg. Gradually, the Continentals were pushed back, and Washington would withdraw his army east towards Philadelphia. He had lost the battle, but thanks to the time gained by the stand of the 3^rd Virginia, he was able to leave the field with his army intact. He and the army would live to fight another day.

The 3^rd Virginia would pay a terrible price at the Battle of Brandywine. Out of approximately 200 men who went into action that day over forty men and seven officers fell on the field dead or wounded. Among the dead were Lt. Robert Peyton, Lt. Apollos Cooper, and Lt. William White. Captain John Ashby suffered a relatively minor wound, and he stayed on the field to urge his men onward. Captain Francis Lee was gravely wounded, as was Captain John Chilton. Wounded in the side, Chilton refused to leave the field and was propped up on a tree where he could watch the battle swirling around him. He expired later that evening in a local meeting house turned hospital.

This stone marks the mass grave of those killed at Brandywine, including men of the 3rd Virginia.

Decades later, the Marquis de Lafayette, now an old man, returned to America on a triumphal tour of the young nation that he had helped to found. During his tour he visited Fauquier County, giving a stirring address in Warrenton. Over the course of the day he inquired after former comrades, including John Ashby, who had died several years prior. As the speeches gave way to toasts, he raised his glass “To the memory of our countrymen – officers and soldiers of the Third Virginia Regiment, who gallantly fell in defence of the rights of man.”

A Canal Conundrum

The early decades of the 19th century were a boom time for massive improvement projects across the young United States. Turnpikes carried goods to market and port cities, as well as people migrating westward. The National Road, running from Maryland to Illinois, may be the most famous road of the era, but countless others were constructed. The Ashby’s Gap Turnpike ran through the heart of the Mosby Heritage Area, part of a road network that also included the Millwood Pike and Little River Turnpike. Later, turnpikes gave way to railroads, and the Manassas Gap Railroad, Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire, and others laid tracks in the Heritage Area. The third part of the transportation infrastructure of 19th century America were canals. The Chesapeake and Ohio and Erie Canals are the best known examples from the period, carrying bulk goods from the west to the cities of the coast.

Major canal projects in 19th century America

Many of the old turnpikes still exist in the form of roads we use every day. Modern Rt. 50 follows much of the old Ashby’s Gap Turnpike, and remnants of the old road bed can be seen alongside the modern road. Some of the local rail lines are still used to haul freight across northern Virginia, while others have been converted to recreational trails, like the W&OD. Unlike roads and railroads, canals are rarely part of our modern transportation networks. Like outdated rail lines, many canal towpaths have been turned into recreational trails. Others have simply disappeared into the landscape through disuse and neglect. Some canals, like the Goose Creek Canal in Loudoun County, never got far off the drawing board to begin with.

In 1830, a group of investors met in Leesburg to discuss the construction of a canal that could bring the flour from Loudoun’s booming merchant mills to the ports of Georgetown and Alexandria for export. Canals were particularly attractive for this kind of heavy bulk cargo, which was often expensive to move by wagon. The investors were a who’s-who of antebellum Loudoun planters and businessmen, including Charles Fenton Mercer of Aldie, and George Carter of Oatlands. The former financed the largest milling operation in the county, while the later owned one of the largest wheat growing plantations in the area, as well as a mill. Mercer also had experience with canals, serving as the first president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. Together, they envisioned an ambitious plan to make Goose Creek and Little River navigable from the Potomac River to Aldie – a distance of nearly 20 miles.

George Carter of Oatlands, early investor and President of the Goose Creek and Little River Navigation Co.

The proposed route of the Goose Creek Canal (Loudoun History/Eugene Scheel)

The state of Virginia would cover a portion of the cost, but the backers of the “Goose Creek and Little River Navigation Company” still needed to raise almost $40,000. Unfortunately, the 1830s and 1840s were a time of financial difficulties across the nation. The Panic of 1837 led to a depression that lasted years, which made it hard to find investors for the canal project. This delay would be a huge setback to the canal company, as railroads became more and more competitive with canals during this time. The project suffered a further blow when George Carter died in 1846.

Ground was finally broken for the Goose Creek canal in 1849, nearly 20 years after the project was first proposed. A series of stone locks were designed to take boats up and down the creek to the Potomac, where a river lock would allow them to enter the river and cross to the C&O Canal on the Maryland side. Construction lasted until 1854, but due to engineering issues only 12 of the planned 20 miles were ever finished. This carried the canal only as far as Ball’s Mill (Evergreen Mill). The moment had finally come to test out the canal’s capacity. An 11 x 42 foot canal boat was brought from Cumberland, Maryland, and entered the Goose Creek Canal at the Potomac River. There had been little rain that spring, so water levels in Goose Creek were much lower than normal. The canal boat, which should have been able to make the trip in a few hours, had to be dragged by hand over sandbars and shallows. After a long and grueling trip, the boat finally made it to Ball’s Mill. It would be the only boat to ever make a voyage on the Goose Creek Canal.

A canal boat on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, similar to the ones that would have been used on the Goose Creek Canal.

The Goose Creek Canal was an absolute failure. Nature, however, was not the only culprit. Low water doomed the test run in 1854, but by that time the age of canals was beginning to give way to that of railroads. Several rail lines were beginning to make inroads into the region, providing faster and more reliable transportation than the canal ever could. Humphey Powell, President of the Canal Company, complained that railroads had drawn off the canal’s “early friends and advocates.” By 1857 the Goose Creek and Little River Navigation Company was on the brink of collapse. Railroads had taken over local transport and the nation was in the midst of another economic depression. Writing to his investors for last time, Powell declared that the project was “of little value either to the state or to the individuals who have expended their money on it.”

Although the life of the Goose Creek Canal was brief, it did leave a lasting mark on the landscape. Much of the course of the canal can still be seen, appearing as a broad ditch running alongside the creek. The canal locks, designed to move the flatboats as the water level rose or dropped, are much more noticeable today. The canal designers chose to make them out of stone rather than wood, and they remain in remarkably good shape to this day. If you are interested in exploring the remnants of the Goose Creek Canal, the best place to do so is at Kephart Bridge Landing Park. Trails along Goose Creek lead to some of the existing canal ruins – all that remain of the failed and forgotten project.

Remains of one of the canal locks (abandonedcountry.com CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS)

“Maryland, Whip Maryland” at Front Royal

In late May, 1862, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and his Army of the Valley came barreling down the Shenandoah Valley. Numbering over 16,000 men, his mission was to tie down the separate Union commands scattered around the Valley and prevent them from uniting with each other or leaving the Valley to join Federal forces moving on Richmond. As they marched northward, one of the obstacles in their way was the small US garrison at Front Royal.

The town of Front Royal in the 1860s (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated)

Front Royal occupies a strategic position as one of the best gateways into the Shenandoah Valley, and as Jackson approached it was up to Colonel John Kenly to hold the town. The Baltimore native commanded the small US garrison in Front Royal, numbering around 1,000 men. The bulk of the soldiers were from Kenly’s own 1st Maryland Volunteer Infantry (US), with a handful of Pennsylvania and New York cavalry men. Colonel Kenly was an experienced military man, having commanded troops in the Mexican War, and he realized that the odds against him were long. However, he was determined to slow the Confederates down as well as he could. With the bulk of his forces and what little artillery he had on hand, Kenly and the blue-clad Marylanders took up a defensive position on Richards’ Hill, near the confluence of the North and South Branches of the Shenandoah.

Baltimore born John Kenly commanded the US forces at Front Royal

Opposite Kenly, the Confederate forces halted outside of Front Royal to prepare their assault. Among Jackson’s force was the 1st Maryland Infantry (CS), a regiment made up of men who fled south across the Potomac to join the rebels. Throughout the previous weeks, there had been a great deal of dissension within the ranks of the 1st Maryland (CS). Many of the men had enlisted for 12 months and their enlistments had expired, while others in the regiment had enlisted for the duration of the war. Conflict over the expired enlistments had led to open mutiny, with many men refusing to fight. Colonel Bradley Johnson, the commander of the mutinous Marylanders, saw an opportunity to rally his men for the coming fight.

Colonel Johnson rode before his discontented men and addressed them with an appeal to their honor:

“You have heard this personal order from General Jackson and you are in a pretty condition to obey. You are the sole hope of Maryland. You carry with you her honor and her pride. Shame on you—shame on you. I shall return this order to General Jackson with the endorsement, ‘The First Maryland refuses to the face the enemy’, for I will not trust the honor of the glorious old State to discontented, dissatisfied men. I won’t lead me who have no heart. Every man who is discontented must fall out of ranks—step to the rear and march with the guard. If I can get ten good men, I’ll take the Maryland colors with them and will stand for home and honor; but never again call yourselves Marylanders!“

Colonel Bradley Johnson, who rallied his 1st Maryland Infantry (CS) for the attack on Front Royal.

Johnson’s appeal was met with wild enthusiasm, and the rebel Marylanders formed and moved to the front. They would be the vanguard of the Confederate assault, at the head of over 3,000 veteran troops ready to capture Front Royal. Johnson’s Marylanders were particularly excited to test their mettle against their Unionist counterparts in Kenly’s regiment.

As the Confederates advanced into Front Royal, they quickly drove the Federal pickets through the streets of town. According to one account, one young lady of the town called to the advancing Confederates “Go it, boys! Maryland, whip Maryland!” Kenly’s position on Richards’ Hill held for some time, but he was gradually forced to abandon the hill when Confederate cavalry slipped around behind him and threatened to cut him off. The 1st Maryland (US) crossed the South and North Branches, and attempted to burn the bridges as they went. Sergeant William Taylor of Baltimore received his first Medal of Honor citation for his role in firing the bridges that afternoon.

Colonel Kenly and his men took up another defensive position north of town on Guard Hill, as the rebels attempted to put out the burning bridges. It was clear to the veteran commander that his garrison was hopelessly outnumbered, and soon the Confederates were advancing once again.

Kenly found his position at Guard Hill was now under threat of being over run, as Confederate cavalry again pressed around his flanks. The Union Marylanders fell back once again, heading north up the pike towards Winchester (modern Rt. 522). They turned to make another stand near the Thomas McKay house, where high ground straddled both sides of the road. Unfortunately for Kenly the strength of the position was more than offset by the sheer numbers of the Confederate forces. Once again, the rebels pushed around the Federals, and Colonel Kenly desperately tried to hold the line. In the ensuing struggle, Colonel Kenly fell with a severe wound as he was extolling his men to “Rally round the flag!” Chaos ensued, and when the firing finally stopped nearly 700 Union troops were captured.

The McKay House, also known as Fairview, where the Kenly’s Marylanders made their final stand.

Participants in the battle recorded the unusual nature of the aftermath. Kenly’s 1st Maryland (US) was largely raised in the city of Baltimore, and Johnson’s 1st Maryland (CS) included a large number of Baltimore men as well. Many had come from the same neighborhoods and even the same families. The oft repeated phrase of “brother against brother” was literally true that day as Confederate officer William Goldsboro was surprised to see his brother, Charles, among the Union prisoners. The rebel Goldsboro later recalled how “nearly all recognized old friends and acquaintances, whom they greeted cordially, and divided with them the rations which had just changed hands.”

The fall of Front Royal opened the road for Jackson’s advance further down the Valley. In the next few weeks he was able to drive most of the forces opposing him back across the Potomac and even threaten the Federal position at Harper’s Ferry. His campaign in the Valley solidified his reputation as one on the Confederacy’s most active and enterprising officers. For the men of the two 1st Maryland Infantry Regiments, the Battle of Front Royal was always remembered for the intimate connection between the combatants. Today that legacy is remembered by the 115th Infantry Regiment of the Maryland National Guard, who carry the motto “Rally Round the Flag” in honor of the orders shouted by Colonel Kenly at Front Royal.