Willoughby Newton was Centreville’s first real estate developer. He owned more than 6000 acres, much of today's Centreville. Newton gave some of his land to his children, some of whom settled in the area. Newton also built ‘quarters’ to house enslaved workers who worked the land directly for him, raising cash crops such as tobacco and apples for hard cider. He sold land to entrepreneurs interested in establishing businesses along the Mountain Road (today Braddock Road) such as William Carr Lane and the Newgate Tavern. And he leased land to farmers. These tenant farms included a dwelling house, tobacco house, and an orchard. Rents were paid in tobacco. One such farm was leased to Thomas Brown near today’s Ellanor C. Lawrence Park, another farm was leased to Richard Omohundro who may have built Level Green.Newton amassed his holdings over a period of years, ordering surveys as parcels were added. He asked suveyors to mark the boundaries of his land with stones carved with his initials. Local Boy Scouts found the one on display here in 1971 on the property of Mattie Gaskins Brown near today’s intersection of Darkwood Drive and St. Timothy’s Lane, marked “WN 1739.” Mrs. Brown donated the stone to the Historic Centreville Society which has loaned it to the Sully District Supervisor.

Newton boundary stone in place where found.

1739 survey overlaid on modern map shows the orignial location of the boundary stone and the Sully Government Center.

Inside the Sully Government Center you'll find a small exhibition of images and artifacts from Centreville and Chantilly, including the Willoughby Newton Boundary Stone. The exhibit is in the main hall and the building is always open. This entry focuses on the Boundary Stone as other items are on loan and subject to change.




Sully Government Center Exhibits including Willoughby Newton Boundary Stone

Before this was the Sully District, it was Centreville. This is one of four driving tours of Centreville writ large: Chantill-Centreville, Centreville Historic District, Southern Centreville-Clifton, and Civil War Sites.

Chantilly-Centreville

The plain, vernacular style of the one-room post-and-beam Frying Pan Meeting House (or Meetinghouse) reflect the values of simplicity in the Baptist faith. The Episcopal Church dominated religious life in early Virginia, and the architecture of the Frying Pan Meeting House represents a break with that tradition. On the site of the church is a cemetery and a baptismal pond in Frying Pan Spring. The meeting house and its grounds have remained mostly unaltered, with only minor renovations in the 1800s, and so the area has a high level of historic integrity. Both free Blacks and enslaved individuals were part of the congregation; whites and Blacks worshiped together, were baptized together, and were buried together in cemetery. Church records cited in the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form note that in 1840, the racial composition of the congregation was nearly even, with 29 Black members and 33 white members. Both Union and Confederate forces used the meeting house as a picket during the Civil War. Confederate soldiers camped on the grounds at times during 1861 and 1862. During the Civil War battle in Dranesville in 1862, the meeting house served as a hospital. It is therefore likely that soldiers who died are buried in the cemetery, but these graves are unmarked. The meeting house was the only church known to have been built in Floris until the late nineteenth century. After 1867, African-Americans in the community organized their own congregation, building the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in 1882. Services continued at the meeting house until 1968. Arthur L. Carter, the last surviving member of the congregation, deeded the meeting house to the Fairfax County Park Authority in 1984. It stands on the larger Frying Park Farm Park, which preserves and interprets twentieth-century farm life. While the meeting house and grounds are not consistently open to the public, the Park Authority does offer tours upon request. Other names for this structure are Frying Pan Baptist Church and Frying Pan Spring Meetinghouse. The "Frying Pan" name for the meeting house and surrounding farm come from a legend regarding settlers attacking Native Americans who were camping at the site and who left behind their frying pan.

Baptists were one of the first sects in early Virginia to welcome African-Americans into their congregations, and this meeting house is one of the oldest churches in the country with a history of a racially-integrated congregation. Its history begins in 1775, when congregants first formed a community at Bull Run, and later wrote to Robert "Counsellor" Carter to ask for permission to build a church on land he owned near Frying Pan Spring. He consented, and they built the current church, a plain wood-framed structure, in 1791. For decades, neighbors of different races worshiped alongside one another. The Fairfax County Park Authority acquired the building in 1984, and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources added it to its Historic Register in 1990. Several historic markers placed by different groups stand at the site

Frying Pan Meetinghouse

Sully was the home of Richard Bland Lee, uncle of Robert E. Lee, and northern Virginia's first representative to Congress. He lived here with his wife, Elizabeth Collins Lee, from 1794-1811. Both the north and south entrances have prominent porches, with some original woodwork still extant. In 1799, the Lees added a one-and-a-half story east wing to the house. During the Lee residency, the farm was supported by enslaved African Americans who were field laborers, domestics and skilled artisans. The main house at Sully, while not a mansion, possesses prominent woodwork and combines aspects of Georgian and Federal architecture. A representative slave quarter stands southeast of the main house. Lee sold the home to his cousin Francis Lightfoot Lee in 1811, whose daughter auctioned the property in 1839. The next owner was William Swartout, and a succession of owners possessed the home over the next century. In the 1840s the house expanded again with a new one-story kitchen wing on the west side of the house. The plantation was an important site during the Civil War, when it was owned by the Haight and Barlow families, both migrants from New York and staunch Unionists. The men abandoned the farm to the women early in the war in order to escape capture by Confederate raiders. Supposedly it was used as a hospital during the Battle of Ox Hill (Chantilly) on September 1st, 1862. Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart stopped here during his Christmas Raid in late December 1862, and he forced the staunch Unionist Maria Barlow to feed him and his fellow generals (W.H.F. Rooney Lee, Fitzhugh Lee, and Wade Hampton) breakfast. He also left several wounded men he had captured in her care before riding on towards Confederate lines. Sully was also visited by Colonel John S. Mosby. In 1957, the Federal Aviation Agency purchased the plantation to be used for what is now Dulles International Airport. The FAA intended to burn the house, but a Special Act of Congress prevented this and required it to be administered by a preservation organization. Fairfax County now administers the site. The plantation was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. Today, the American Association of Museums-accredited site features the original home and outbuildings, decorated with period furnishings; gardens; and a model slave quarters. Visitors can take a tour of the Sully Plantation home that gives ample information about the family's life. The Museum also offers tours of the grounds, which includes information about archaeological discoveries and focuses on the lives of enslaved persons who lived on the plantation.

This 1794 plantation was built by Richard Bland Lee, uncle of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The home on the site, a three-section frame farmhouse, retains much of its original woodwork. The plantation was home to the Lee family from 1794 until 1811 and hosted many prominent guests, including George Washington. The house passed through many hands until the land was purchased in 1957 by the Federal Aviation Agency for what is now Dulles International Airport; an act of Congress prevented the FAA from demolishing the house. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. The current historic site presents information about the Lee family as well as the enslaved persons who worked on the plantation. The grounds include model slave quarters and outbuildings. 

Sully Plantation and Historic Site

In 1807 Harrison McAtee spied a promising location for a tavern: alongside the new Little River Turnpike and near a source of fresh water, Flatlick Run. The difficulty was that neither the tenant, William Benard Sears, nor the sub-tenant, William Vallandingham, had the right to sell the land, Nonetheless, McAtee and Vallandingham struck up a bargain (one that would eventually land them both in civil court). Using hand hewn 10″x10″ log timbers over a stone foundation and with two stone chimneys on the northern and southern sides, McAtee built his tavern, a smokehouse and ice-house and other buildings to support his business. The tavern was two stories, with two rooms, a bar room and a kitchen on the first floor, and bedchambers upstairs. There were two front doors leading from the porch to each first-floor room. Stairs were located in the larger kitchen room so that ladies could enter the tavern, have a meal and retire without entering the masculine space of the bar room. This gender separation was typical of tavern construction in this area during this period, but it did not mean that women did not enter the bar room. Indeed, the Fairfax County Court issued a tavern license in 1807 to Charity McAtee, not Harrison. Harrison does apply for a license himself in 1814 and 1815.In addition to issuing a license, the Fairfax County Court regulated the rates taverns could charge for food and liquors that were posted in the tavern, Following is a transcript of the rates established at the Fairfax County December Court of 1816 for liquors: For one warm dinner with cider beer spirit &amp; water or toddy $..75 For one quart of good spirit or French brandy or in that proportion $1.– For one quart of continental rum or in that proportion .50 For one quart of peach brandy or in that proportion .75 For one quart of apple brandy or in that proportion .50 For one quart of whiskey or in that proportion .50 For one quart of good Maderia wine or in that prop.$1..75 For one quart of good port Lisbon or other wine in that proportion $1..– For one bottle of claret $1..50 For one bottle of English porter .42 For one bottle of American porter .42 For one quart of toddy made with good spirits .34 For one quart of punch made with French brandy or good spirits .50 For one hot breakfast or supper with tea or coffee .50 For one gallon of corn .25 For one gallon of oats .25 For one nights lodging in clean sheets .25 For one night or twenty four hours stablage for horse with hay or corn blades .50 For one quart of cider .12 ½ For one night or twenty four hours pasturage for horse .12 ½ In 1819 an economic panic set a depression in motion that filled local debtors’ prisons and challenged many businesses. The rate for one nights lodging, set at $0.50 for 1817, was reduced to $0.17 in July 1819 and $0.12 ½ in March 1820. Liquor rates also decreased, but at a lesser percentage. Perhaps this downturn had some bearing on Harrison McAtee’s decision to sell his house on March 22, 1822. Perhaps one day Burger Shack will offer a “Court day” and sell beer at $0.42 a glass and $0.25 for a gallon of oats for your car.

Which came first, the burger or the shack? The log façade you see on today’s Burger Shack is not a veneer applied by some corporation to produce an “authentic” old-timey atmosphere for diners, nor is it truly original. McAtee’s tavern was demolished and rebuilt using some of the original materials. Artifacts recovered during the process helped to confirm local lore that the building had been used as a tavern.

McAtee's Tavern (Mitchell-Weeks House)

Cornelia Lee Turberville Stuart inherited land from her Turberville father in 1817. She and her husband, Charles Stuart, honored her Lee family ancestors by naming the mansion house and farm they built there in 1818 Chantilly, after the home of Richard Henry Lee, who had signed the Declaration of Independence. Noted for it's beautiful setting and the elegant hospitality of the Stuarts, Chantilly exemplified the traditions of Virginia's gentry class. This genteel lifestyle is often remembered romantically, but reality was more complex as the Stuart's elegance and hospitality depended on the labor of enslaved people.  On December 31, 1854, four enslaved men, Trolious, Henry, and Douglas Riley, and a man known only as Vincent, escaped from <a href="http://www.novahistory.org/Chantilly.html" target="_blank">Chantilly</a> farm in a bid for freedom. Trolious Riley, 25 years old, was a house servant and Henry Riley, about 20 years old, was a farm hand. The other men were also in their early 20s. Charles Stuart's son, Sholto, placed an ad in the Alexandria Gazette offering a reward of $100 each if a man was secured outside the state and $50 if captured in Virginia. In the ad he expressed surprise that the men had fled, noting that two had left behind wives and infant children, and that Sholto "had no doubt" they had been aided by "some abolitionist living in Fairfax." Dissent among the people enslaved by the Stuarts was not new. In 1849, Sholto had sent another group of four men south to Arkansas so as to keep them from absconding. Charles Stuart had died in 1846 and the long process of settling estates often resulted in the division of enslaved families, and so it may have been that the Rileys and Vincent left in an effort to preserve their families. We have no explanation from the men themselves, and so can only speculate. Whatever their aspirations, they were not realized. Trolious, Henry, Douglas and Riley were captures, jailed, transported to Richmond and sold for more than $2600. The Civil War brought Chantilly's contradictions to a rapid and violent end. Occupied by Union soldiers in the early years of the war, even the target of a raid by Colonel John S. Mosby and his men, Chantilly was burned in 1863 and all the buildings were destroyed except the overseer's house and one of the "servants' quarters." The stone house you see here today is one of those buildings.

The stone house was built circa 1823 and may have initially been used as a roadside tavern (it was not as close to the road as it is at present, but it did have two front doors, a common feature of early 19th century taverns in this area). By the time of the Civil War however, it was likely the home of the overseer employed by the Stuarts. It remained a private residence until 1967 when it was purchased by the International Town and Country Club.

Chantilly

Cabell's Mill was built along Big Rocky Run around the 1770s by William Carr Lane; the miller's house was most likely constructed sometime in the early 1800s. The mill property was part of a land grant of 700 acres south of Big Rocky Run to Francis Awbrey in 1728. Initially used for grinding grains, the mill ground sumac for the tanning industry after the Civil War. The mill changed hands frequently for its first 80 years of operation. The property was advertised for sale in 1818 as "about 27 acres of land" with a "valuable merchant mill" and "a large stone dwelling house nearly finished" (the adjacent miller's house) within one mile of Centreville. The new owner in December 1818 was James Lane Triplett. So, who was Cabell? The name is a misnomer, taken from a misspelling of the owner's name - Edward Caple - on a Civil War-era map. Caple bought what was known then as Triplett's Mill in 1845. Edward died in 1865; the mill on a 20-acre tract passed to his son, James S., with Edward's widow, Ruth, given life tenancy in the two west rooms of the dwelling house. Ruth Caple also was granted pasturage of one cow, would have her fuel cut and hauled, and would receive an annuity of $100 per year. In 1870, James S. was a 26-year-old miller, living in the miller's house with his wife, a two-year-old daughter, and a domestic servant. James S. Caple sold the mill property to Erasmus M. Pittman in 1875, ending his family's 30-year period of ownership. Pittman converted the operations to grinding sumac. The 2-1/2 story stone structure once had a 26-foot-tall overshot wheel on its eastern side. The walls of the first two stories are two feet thick! New owners of the mill in 1908 described the saw and grist mill as running full time in 1909 under the supervision of a "first class miller." The mill's last operators were Harvey and Olive Nichols, who sold the property in 1916. Rocky Run was diverted and the mill race was filled in during renovations of the mill in 1929 by John Rixey-Smith. The following year, Rixey-Smith moved into his summer residence at the mill and constructed a dam to impound water for a swimming pool. Now part of Ellanor C. Lawrence Park, a 650-acre nature-themed park of the Fairfax County Park Authority, the mill was converted into a guest house by the new owners, Ellanor C. and David Lawrence, in the mid-1940s. The Lawrences were residents of Washington, D.C. and initially used the property as a weekend retreat. The adjacent miller's house, called Middlegate by this time, was renovated by the Lawrences into their country residence. They added a wing constructed of stone connected to the main house by a breezeway in 1944. After Mr. Lawrence retired, the couple settled at Middlegate. David Lawrence was the founder of U.S. News and World Report. He recorded weekly newscasts, broadcast on the NBC Network, from the property from 1945 to 1970. After Mrs. Lawrence died, Mr. Lawrence donated the property to Fairfax County to be used as a park. The mill served as a local Community Center in the 1970s. After major renovations of the interior of the mill by the county in 1980, the mill was made available for event rentals. The miller's house, Middlegate, is used by the Fairfax County Park Authority staff and is not open to the public. Cabell's Mill and Middlegate are listed on the Fairfax County Inventory of Historic Sites.

Cabell's Mill was constructed along Big Rocky Run around the 1770s. Initially used for grinding grains, the mill ground sumac for the tanning industry after the Civil War. The 2-1/2 story stone structure once had a 26-foot-tall overshot wheel; the walls of the first two stories are two feet thick! The mill ceased operation in 1916 and the interior underwent major renovations several times in the 20th century. The Fairfax County Park Authority currently offers the mill building for event rentals. The adjacent miller's house, Middlegate, is from the same era as the mill and is not open to the public.

Cabell's Mill and Miller's House/Middlegate

Walney is a stone farmhouse north of Centreville, Virginia constructed around 1780 by Thomas Brown. The plantation passed to his son, Coleman, in 1793. By the 1840s, the 800 acres of the late Coleman Brown included "two nice farms, with suitable and commodious buildings on each." The new owner in 1843, Lewis H. Machen, as a relative of the Brown family and worked as the Clerk of the U.S. Senate. Machen relocated his family from Washington to the Walney farm, hoping to provide a healthier lifestyle for his children, commuting there himself on the weekends or when Congress was not in session. Machen was not impressed by the main house, describing it in a letter as a "Virginia Cottage, barely sufficient to afford a shelter and enable us to sleep and eat, without exposure to the elements...the kitchen, the connecting communication, and the Corn crib, either wholly without roofs or requiring entire renovation." Machen soon used over 20,000 new shingles to cover the dwelling house, barn, kitchen, smokehouse, cornhouse, and passageway. He doubled the value of improvements on the farm in 1845; the value nearly tripled by 1851. The farm produced 500 pounds of butter in 1850 (US Agricultural Census 1850, Robison Key Events p. 9). The Walney farm was near several Civil War battles, including the first major battle, the First Battle of Manassas (also known as First Battle of Bull Run) in 1861. Soldiers from both sides of the conflict set up encampments at Walney during the war. James P. Machen, one of the sons of Lewis H., joined the Confederate Army. He got permission to leave his unit and visit his family at their home before the First Battle of Manassas. His sister, Emmaline, told him she had seen columns of Union soldiers on the move along Warrenton Pike with artillery while peering out of an upstairs window in the house. James rode to Manassas, arriving around 3 am to warn the Confederate generals of the approaching enemy. Exhausted, he later admitted that he missed the battle while sleeping in a tent. James wrote of the events in a letter to a local newspaper in 1905. One raid by Union soldiers after the Second Battle of Manassas in September 1862 was the final straw that persuaded the Machen family to move away from Walney. The elder Machen was bedridden after suffering a stroke. His wife, Caroline, stood in the doorway to block access to the home by Union troops, who carted away hundreds of pounds of foodstuffs the family had in storage. The Machens rented a home in Baltimore, Maryland, where their other son, Arthur, was a practicing attorney. A Union soldier named Thomas Corbett was captured at Walney in 1863 by the infamous Confederate raider Colonel John S. Mosby and his men. After the end of the war, Corbett became famous as the man who shot and killed the fleeing John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of President Lincoln. Only one Machen family member, James, returned to Walney after the war's end, when he established his own family in a frame house built just ten yards from the stone house. After the frame house burned to the ground in late 1874, James renovated and moved into the stone house, adding an addition. In 1880, the dairy farm produced 3,000 pounds of butter. James P. Machen lived in the Walney house until his advancing age led to the widower moving to a boarding house in the town of Fairfax, where he lived in 1900; a son, Lewis, who was a practicing attorney, also resided in the boarding house. Walney began to be rented out in this era; the first tenant was the Rutter family. In 1910, Henry W. Rutter was a 59-year-old farmer living on the rented farm with a wife and three adult children. Machen heirs sold Walney Farm in 1935 to Ellanor C. Lawrence of Washington, D.C. Lawrence and her husband, David, the founder of U.S. News and World Report, used the property as a country retreat. They also made extensive renovations to the interior of the house, including adding a wing to its north end in 1948. The Lawrences ultimately retired to another house on the property, the miller's house for Cabell's Mill, and rented out the Walney house. The Walney house was listed on the Fairfax County Historic Landmarks Survey in 1970. In 1971, after Ellanor's death, her widower donated the farm to the Fairfax County Park Authority, who also completed some interior renovations. Today, the house serves at the Visitor Center for the surrounding Ellanor C. Lawrence Park.

Now serving as the Walney Visitor Center for Ellanor C. Lawrence Park, the stone home known as Walney housed generations of farmers within the same family from the 1780s to the 1920s. The house and grounds were also near the location of several Civil War battles. The surrounding dairy farm was producing tons (literally) of butter per year by 1880. After the 1890s, the house was rented out to tenant farmers once the owner became too old to farm, and his children left to marry or become attorneys. The farm was purchased by a Washington, D.C. couple - the Lawrences - in 1935 as a country retreat; they made many renovations to the interior and added a wing on the north side. They retired to the Cabell's Mill miller's house elsewhere on the property and rented out the Walney House. Walney and the farm were donated by the Lawrences to Fairfax County in 1971. They became part of a 650-acre nature-themed park so that others could experience the peace that the family found in the countryside, far from the busyness of Washington. The building houses an information desk, restrooms, a shop, historical and live animal exhibits, and a classroom.

Walney

Most of the colonial landowners in Fairfax did not live on the large parcels of land they owned. Land was purchased to grow cash crops, to yield rents, and to provide an inheritance for the large families such men often enjoyed. Major George Turberville may never have set foot here, but his great-grandson, George Richard Lee Turberville was born here at Leeton in 1845. Only in his teens as the Civil War began, George was nonetheless caught up in the conflict. On July 30, 1861, he noted the Union Army camped in Centreville was preparing an attack and alerted his uncle John DeBell, and his neighbor James P. Machen. Machen and DeBell rode through the woods all night, arriving in time to warn the Confederate Army as the morning of the First Battle of Manassas dawned. Young George soon joined Mosby’s Rangers. Mosby recruited young men from Northern Virginia, using their local knowledge and neighborhood ties to organize raids that effectively harassed Union troops in the area from 1863-65. Mosby's men also captured people of color and sold them into slavery. George was captured and imprisoned twice during his time with Mosby. Each time he was released on parole he returned to Mosby's unit until he was wounded and captured in 1864. George moved to Texas for a while after the war, but returned to Leeton and is buried here with other members of his family. Leeton was sold out of the Turberville family in 1952. After the Civil War, Mosby spoke forcibly against those Southerners who attempted to claim that the Civil War was not about slavery. He also grew to support freedom for former slaves and other goals of the nascent and biracial Republican Party in the South. "Like most Southern men, I had disapproved the reconstruction measures and was sore and very restive under military government" Mosby stated. The former Confederate raider explained "since my prejudices have faded, I can now see that many things which we regarded as being prompted by hostile and vindictive motives were actually necessary, in order to prevent anarchy and to secure the freedom of the newly emancipated slave.”1

During the 1730s, this land was part of a 4,142-acre parcel belonging to Major George Turberville. At this time, Turbervllle, Willoughby Newton, Robert Carter, and members of the Lee family owned most of the land in western Fairfax. In colonial Virginia, that wealth was built through the labor indentured servants in the 17th century and enslaved people in the decades and centuries that followed. As many as 45 enslaved people in the 1730 grew tobacco, fruit and other farm products here. That uncompensated labor enriched the Turberville family.

Not easily visible from the road, the water pump marks the driveway to Leeton, a Turberville family home built here possibly as early as 1793. It remains a private residence, please stay on the public road.

Leeton

Willoughby Newton was Centreville’s first real estate developer. He owned more than 6000 acres, much of today's Centreville. Newton gave some of his land to his children, some of whom settled in the area. Newton also built ‘quarters’ to house enslaved workers who worked the land directly for him, raising cash crops such as tobacco and apples for hard cider. He sold land to entrepreneurs interested in establishing businesses along the Mountain Road (today Braddock Road) such as William Carr Lane and the Newgate Tavern. And he leased land to farmers. These tenant farms included a dwelling house, tobacco house, and an orchard. Rents were paid in tobacco. One such farm was leased to Thomas Brown near today’s Ellanor C. Lawrence Park, another farm was leased to Richard Omohundro who may have built Level Green. Newton amassed his holdings over a period of years, ordering surveys as parcels were added. He asked suveyors to mark the boundaries of his land with stones carved with his initials. Local Boy Scouts found the one on display here in 1971 on the property of Mattie Gaskins Brown near today’s intersection of Darkwood Drive and St. Timothy’s Lane, marked “WN 1739.” Mrs. Brown donated the stone to the Historic Centreville Society which has loaned it to the Sully District Supervisor.

Silas Hutchison was born December 14, 1806 and died November 23, 1883. He was a built a saw mill and a grist mill along the nearby Cub Run and was active in the critical 1860 presidential campaign. In July 1851, 12 men evaluated the land where Hutchison proposed building a mill dam. Since the dam would cause some flooding to create a mill pond that affected the adjoining land of a neighbor, the men were there to asses what damages Hutchison would have to pay his neighbor, John M. Scott. Today, you can stand on Scott's side of the river and view the remains of Hutchison's mill dam from the trail that runs along the creek behind the Cub Run Rec Center and Westfield High School. Hutchison built two mills here, a saw mill to create lumber from trees and a grist mill to grind grains into flour. In August 1860 Silas was elected President of the First District Constitutional Union Club of Fairfax. Hutchison was part of the group of Centreville area residents, including James Machen of Walney and merchant Alexander S. Grigsby, who supported "The Constitution, The Union, and the Enforcement of the Laws." These men pledged they would encourage others to support these principles and the election of John Bell as President of the United States. The pivotal 1860 election had four presidential candidates, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, John Breckenridge, and John C. Bell. Lincoln and Douglas famously competed mostly in the northern states, with Douglas advocating that the expansion of slavery should be determined by popular vote (a position that had resulted in civil war in "Bloody Kansas") and Lincoln pledging to protect slavery where it legally existed but to stop it's expansion westward. Bell and Breckenridge contended largely in the South states. Breckenridge's Southern Democratic Party sought to remove any barriers to the expansion of slavery, including support for the acquisition of Cuba. Bell's Constitutional Union Party, on the other hand, avoided taking an explicit stand regarding the expansion of slavery, and sought to maintain the status quo and earlier compromises. Bell lost the election, coming in third for electoral votes, in part because he did win Virginia (Douglas had more popular votes than Bell, but only 12 electoral votes). Bell's positions on slavery were similar to Lincoln's and initially he was supportive of the new President. But the confrontation over Fort Sumter, led Bell to abandon the ideal of Union for the Confederacy. As of yet, we have no record of how Silas Hutchison reacted to these events and Virginia's succession. The Secretary of the Fairfax Union Club, neighbor James Machen at Walney, like Bell, decided to join the Confederate Army. An educated man well into his thirties, Machen served in the Commissary. Silas Hutchison was 20 years Machen's senior, thus it is not surprising to find that he did not join either army. It is interesting to contemplate how Silas resolved his divided loyalties.

The Silas Hutchison house is included in the Fairfax County Inventory of Historic Sites which lists its construction date between 1750 and 1775. Other sources identify the house with Jeremiah Hutchison and report that there is a stone inscribed with the initials JH and the date 1794 in the chimney of the house. 

A large family cemetery is nearby, just north of 4319 General Kearney Court. It includes burials of the Whaley family in addition to those of Silas Hutchison and his wife Huldah.



Silas Hutchison House and Hutchison-Whaley Cemetery

A family cemetery lies a few yards south of the house. The Fairfax Genealogical Society states that,  "according to information from a Hutchison descendant on file in the Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library, the land surrounding the cemetery was originally a land grant to Andrew Hutchison. Wanda Hutchison Kirkpatrick wrote in 1990 that she remembered the cemetery well from her visits to her grandfather’s house as a child. At least fifteen or twenty grave markers stood in the cemetery, but since children were not allowed to go into the cemetery, Mrs. Kirkpatrick did not know the names on the gravestones. She did remember, however, that when asked who was buried there, her grandfather always said the same thing: “All my family. All the way back.”" (Fairfax Genealogical Society).

Believed to have been built by John Hutchison between 1757 and 1785, it is one of   the oldest buildings in Sully District and distinctively built from brick. The Hutchison family is one of the oldest families to settle the Centreville area, with land grants dated as early as 1726. The house was restored when the surrounding business park was developed. The name, Lafayette Park, reflects another aspect of the lore of the house, that the Marquis de Lafayette slept here.

Chantilly-Centreville

Sully Government Center Exhibits including Willoughby Newton Boundary Stone

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources