Hollis’ Ordinary

John Hollis received licenses for several years to keep an ordinary at his family’s leasehold at the intersection of the Mountain Road (today’s Braddock Road) and the road to the Pohick tobacco warehouse (today’s Rolling Road).1 At that time, the Mountain Road was a major route connecting western lands to Alexandria’s Potomac River port. The site is shown on the map accompanying Beth Mitchell’s Fairfax County, Virginia in 1760.2

Evidence of a reliable water source, which may have influenced choosing where to place the Hollis home and ordinary, exists today in a nearby spring that feeds a pond in the Dunleigh subdivision. A receipt that John Hollis issued to Sampson Franklin for service to seven men and care of horses is included in George Washington’s papers in the Library of Congress.3

  1. Hugh West provided security for licenses recorded on September 20, 1759 and October 21, 1860. Beth Mitchell, Fairfax County Road Orders, 1749-1800, 51 and 56. ↩
  2. Beth Mitchell, Fairfax County, Virginia in 1760: An Interpretive Historical Map (Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning, 1987), map. ↩
  3. George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 4. General Correspondence. 1697-1799, John Hollis to Sampson Franklin, May 5, 1758, Receipted Bill. ↩