Richard Ratcliffe bought this 1000-acre part of Parcel 1.1.7 in 1798 from doctors Henry Rose and Augustine Smith. Ratcliffe merged the land with about 2000 adjacent non-Ravensworth acres, which he had acquired over three decades. He called his plantation Mount … Continue reading →
Home to the Fairfax County courthouse, Providence was known as Fairfax Court House throughout much of the 19th century and particularly during the Civil War. Providence evolved to become today’s City of Fairfax and is its Old Town center. Historic … Continue reading →
Meade Battaile’s sales of his inherited Oak Hill land (Parcel 1.1.4.3.6) created a diverse community that continued at least into the 1920s. African American buyers included three former Oak Hill slaves. John H. Newman Oscar Newman Richard P. Newman Caucasian … Continue reading →
Chain of Ownership and Division Meade Battaile inherited this parcel following the death of his mother, Ann Fitzhugh Battaile in 1880. It is one of six lots in the division of Parcel 1.1.4.3 among Meade and five siblings. Between 1882 … Continue reading →
President Thomas Jefferson’s visit to Ravensworth on April 1-2, 1804 was arranged in three letters between President Jefferson and Nicholas Fitzhugh. Fitzhugh’s letter enclosed a map outlining a route leading into and part way through Ravensworth. An interpretation of that … Continue reading →
Henry Fitzhugh (Colonel) recorded in his ledger for 1764 the following list of 43 tenants and rents. “1764 Ravensworth Rents The above is a list of my Tennants without any (?)”1 Although he labeled this a list of his tenants, … Continue reading →
In May 1758 William Payne, Sr. leased from Henry Fitzhugh (Colonel) “six acres more or less” on Accotink Run for a mill. The 99-year lease required “the yearly rent of one peppercorn on every feast of the Nativity of our … Continue reading →
Over 40 years between 1814 and 1853, William Gooding, Jr. and his sons, Peter Gooding and William H. Gooding, acquired nearly 2100 of Ravensworth’s 24,112 acres (about 8.6%).1 The Gooding Family holdings were contiguous. They stretched in an unbroken line … Continue reading →
William Gooding, Jr. claimed he had never “…seen a railroad, though living within sound of the whistle ten years.”1 Yet a railroad right of way ran through his property near his house and tavern on Little River Turnpike. That railroad … Continue reading →
The Orange and Alexandria Railroad was one of the earlier American railroads. The first section was completed between 1850 and 1854 connecting Alexandria through Orange to Gordonsville, Virginia. Building the line required right of way through several miles of Ravensworth … Continue reading →