(This post was originally written and posted on my Facebook community page, Arts and the Community, and Fashion Statements, on October 14, 2014.)
(Continued from Part 2)
Among the conversions of deserted old buildings to arts-and-cultural centers discussed so far, the Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Fairhaven District of Bellingham, Washington, stood out in its heritage restoration, adaptive design for arts use and greening of the environment – all to a high degree of quality attributable to its owners’ interests and financial capability.
On the other hand, that case also illustrated the uncertainty, due to the allure of business investment returns, of an arts center managed by private, not officially non-profit ownership. But the Fairhaven Firehouse Performing Arts Center is small in its size and local focus, and thus has not suffered from the real economic volatilities of the business world.
Few small communities in the United States have been blessed to have a large U.S. government complex on their land such that its closure would open the prospect of redevelopment, to not only a center of arts and culture but a major tourist attraction with revenue to support the artistic and cultural activities.
The city of Lorton in Fairfax County, Virginia, has.
Well, kind of. It’s a prison complex.
The District of Columbia Correctional Complex had been in Lorton for over 90 years when it closed in 2001. Unlike the typical U.S. prison, the Lorton prison had started as a progressive experiment for reformation of minor criminals in an open-space environment, and at closing its huge land and sprawling structures attracted intense interests in historic preservation and redevelopment:
“Lorton has never been a typical prison. For one thing, it never quite looked like one. Opened in 1910 by the federal government as a Progressive Era experiment in rehabilitation for District convicts, Lorton originally had no fences or bars. Its classical-revival architecture, arch-lined walkways, and open dormitories instead of cells made it look more like a college campus than a place of penitence.
…
… These days, the most recognizable part of Lorton is likely the old Reformatory, now called Central Facility, a collection of red-brick dormitories set back behind rows of razor wire and fences. Central Facility now houses high-medium-security inmates. In the ’80s, severe overcrowding and the constant threat of violence made the medium-security Occoquan Facility–or “the Quack,” as corrections officers call it–the symbol of Lorton’s troubles. But it’s the Maximum Security Facility that probably comes closest to the familiar image of a prison. …
Altogether, Lorton consists of 2 million square feet of building space spread out over 3,000 acres. … A good number of the buildings will survive as part of a state and national historic district. But many of the structures are slated to make way for a mix of parklands and undisturbed countryside as well as housing. Already, there are half-million-dollar town homes pushing up against the prison property… And within chipping distance of the central administration building, which was rebuilt after inmates burned it down in 1989, the county has plans to put in a public golf course.”
(“Ten Things to Do Before Closing a Prison“, Annys Shin, March 9, 2001, Washington City Paper)
It had 3,000 acres, like a small city, much of it originally for prisoner farming:
“What has become of Lorton’s once-renowned kitchen says a lot about what has become of the prison. Lorton’s progressive founders believed that the path to an inmate’s soul was through his stomach. “The idea was, if you give them enough to eat, lots of fresh air, and something to do, you could rehabilitate them,” says former Lorton administrator and prison historian Irma Clifton.
For years, Lorton inmates acquired a work ethic by raising cattle, hogs, turkeys, and chickens, growing their own fruits and vegetables, and milking their own cows on the prison’s 1,200-acre farm. Lorton’s hog plant was once one of the largest in the country, producing 170,000 pounds of pork a year.”
(Annys Shin, March 9, 2001, Washington City Paper)
Changes by the late 1990s made the original goals irrelevant:
“By the ’60s, however, the pork chops on inmates’ plates came from elsewhere, as did the vegetables. Only the dairy portion of the farm remained, producing milk for the prison as well as District public-school kids. (The dairy closed in 1998.) Lorton’s rehabilitative focus shifted from barns to books–until a few years ago, a prisoner at Lorton could earn not only a GED but also a college degree, at the University of the District of Columbia extension inside the Central Facility. Inmates still worked in the kitchen, but the quality of the food declined, and it soon joined the list of inmate grievances, becoming an oft-cited cause for uprisings–of which there have been about a dozen in the past 40 years.”
(Annys Shin, March 9, 2001, Washington City Paper)
Former Lorton administrator Irma Clifton, born and raised near the prison, spent her life working there and became its historian and leading advocate for historic preservation:
“The Feb. 6 gathering of the Mason Neck Citizens Association in Gunston Hall in Mason Neck, Va., is packed. … And almost everyone stays to hear local resident Irma Clifton lecture on the history of the neighboring town of Lorton.
With slides of old photographs, Clifton introduces Joseph Plaskett, the native of Lorton Valley, England, who gave the town its name in 1875, when he opened the Lorton Valley Post Office. It was just a rural farming community when “something happened around the turn of the century that changed Lorton forever,” Clifton says. “And that was that Lorton was chosen as the site for a prison.”
The first inmates–an assortment of bootleggers and horse thieves–arrived in 1910 by barge from the 9th Street Wharf. They built the workhouses and the Reformatory first out of wood, then out of bricks, which they eventually could produce at a rate of 40,000 a day from Lorton’s 10 brick kilns. (Brick-making was phased out in 1966.)
Clifton was born close to the Reformatory, on Silverbrook Road. “I remember as a little girl being able to hear the noise from the [Reformatory] yard. I used to walk in and watch the inmates play baseball,” … Her uncle worked at the prison for a time, as did her siblings. Clifton started there in 1967 in the supply office.
…
Clifton retired from Lorton in 1993 but remained its self-appointed historian. …
… a study commissioned by the GSA bolstered Lorton’s chances of preservation by recommending that 242 of its 452 structures and 552 acres become a historic district. …
At least one building will likely become home to a Lorton prison museum, curated by Clifton. The American Correctional Association is also looking at Maximum Security as a potential site for its museum. And Gary Powers Jr., the son of the U-2 pilot who was shot down by the Soviets in 1960, is looking at a Nike missile site, part of which lies just under the grounds of Minimum Security, as a possible site for his planned Cold War museum.”
(Annys Shin, March 9, 2001, Washington City Paper)
The prison’s minimum security ground was also part of a U.S. military missile site – imagine when hell breaks loose.
The architectural designs were significant, as a 2012 Fairfax County amended document summarizes for the National Register of Historic Places:
“The physical design and composition of the three main prison campuses—the Workhouse, Reformatory, and Penitentiary—embody the social ideals of Progressive era penal reform, intended to promote the rehabilitation of prisoners through diminishment of harsh conditions and physically imposing containment barriers, encouragement of constructive social interaction, promotion of a work ethic, and access to vocational training. In support of these ideals, all three of the campuses comprising the Reformatory and Workhouse complexes were designed around a central quadrangle reminiscent of a college campus and are both individually, as well as collectively, of interest as they address a range of needs. Each includes a series of prison “dormitories” sited around a central open space intended to promote positive social interaction. The buildings and the campus-like site plans were designed by two notable architects employed by the District of Columbia–Snowden Ashford and Albert Harris. The style of the buildings is predominantly Colonial Revival, a popular style in America during the early twentieth century. It is likely that the architects chose the Colonial Revival style, which is frequently used to engender and recall the values of the nation’s founding fathers, to contribute to the reformatory nature of the prison design.”
(“D.C. Workhouse and Reformatory Historic District (Amendment and Additional Documentation 2012)“, March 27, 2012, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Virginia Department of Historic Resources)
Original 2005 documents submitted for the National Register had a similar summary.
(“District of Columbia Workhouse and Reformatory National Register Nomination“, John Milner Associates, Inc., September 2005, Fairfax County)
The key points of significance were: consisting of Workhouse, Reformatory and Penitentiary, the prison was designed to be like college campuses, courtesy of “the social ideals of Progressive era penal reform”; and, the buildings’ Colonial Revival style was intended to “engender and recall the values of the nation’s founding fathers” and was likely chosen to contribute to the goal of prisoner reform.
The prison architecture’s significance can also be seen in a down-to-earth way, in what it achieved and inspired. Prisoner-made bricks contributed to the construction of important buildings in the D.C. area, like the Francis L. Cardozo Senior High School, also known as the Central High School, its construction supervised by the same Snowden Ashford, District of Columbia’s first municipal architect who had supervised the prison design; officially opened in February 1917, the school was on the National Register of Historic Places by 1993:
“Municipal Architect Snowden Ashford supervised the building construction. By mid-1914, excavation was completed and brick from the Occoquan workhouse kilns were being unloaded at the 10th Street storage wharf. Hundreds of onlookers attended the cornerstone laying ceremony. By October 1916, the building was completed and opened its doors to students. The dedication was held in February 1917, a day-long event marked by speeches which lauded the facilities the new school provided.”
(“(FRANCIS L.)CARDOZO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL“, September 1993, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, National Park Service)
The Workhouse was named Occoquan for its location, 1,155 acres of land by the Occoquan River in 1910, growing to 3,500 acres later.
(“A Short History of the D.C. Correctional Complex at Lorton“, Workhouse Prison Museum at Lorton)
But Irma Clifton, the leading historic preservation advocate, had greater ambitions of tourism and business development:
“Lorton, Clifton hopes, will become just like Alcatraz–financially, that is. … “Maybe people will pay to get their pictures taken behind bars,” she muses–or, better yet, maybe some Hollywood studio will pay to film here. But so far, most of the proposals for reusing any remaining buildings at Lorton are educational or cultural, “like a giant Torpedo Factory,” Clifton says, referring to the former munitions plant on the Alexandria waterfront that is now an arts center. Clifton has her own ideas about how to reuse some of the old dormitories. Where inmates once slept, she envisions Internet start-up geeks typing code between Foosball breaks.”
(Annys Shin, March 9, 2001, Washington City Paper)
Alcatraz Island, a former U.S. prison, is a popular tourist attraction in the San Francisco Bay, but not an arts center. It has been portrayed in over 30 Hollywood movies.
(Jerry Lewis Champion, Jr., Alcatraz Unchained, April 2012, AuthorHouse)
So why not Hollywood movies at the former D.C. prison?
The Torpedo Factory Arts Center in a former munitions plant in Alexandria, Virginia, near the U.S. Capital, is the highlight of Alexandria’s Potomac Riverfront:
“… the Torpedo Factory Art Center is home to the largest collection of publicly accessible working artist studios in the U.S.”
(“About – Overview“, Torpedo Factory Arts Center)
An impressive arts center to emulate, but kind of a step-down in ambition for Irma Clifton, so why not also internet start-up companies in the former Lorton prison?
It’s incredible that someone who had spent her life around the Lorton prison and its neighborhood had such vivid imagination for the future historic district, all of that and more in an old prison complex in what had been “a rural farming community” that was extended and continued by prison farm labor until the late 1990s.
Did Clifton miss something in her advocacy? Fairfax County’s summary for the National Register mentioned promoting work, training and social interaction, and also “the values of the nation’s founding fathers”.
Virginia was a land for the United States of America’s founding fathers, something Irma Clifton somehow overlooked.
Fairfax County’s 2013 “comprehensive plan” for the Lower Potomac Planning District categorizes the land initially acquired by the U.S. government for the prison as previously “undeveloped”:
“In 1910, the United States Government acquired a tract of undeveloped land on the Occoquan River and established a workhouse for the District of Columbia. In 1914, the government acquired additional acreage, bringing the size of the site to approximately 2,550 acres, and began constructing the Central Facility of the prison. Title to this land was in the name of the United States, and it was a Federal Reservation, much like a military base, hence the name Lorton Reservation.”
(“FAIRFAX COUNTY COMPREHENSIVE PLAN, 2013 Edition AREA IV Lower Potomac Planning District“, June 3, 2014, Fairfax County)
The planning document lists 4 major heritage resources, including DC Workhouse and Reformatory:
“Identified heritage resources include:
• Fort Belvoir Historic District – With construction starting in 1918, this post illustrates the social, technological and military developments at U.S. Army installations in the years between the world wars.
• DC Workhouse and Reformatory – This Progressive era penal institution for the District of Columbia includes almost 200 historic resources. It is a National Register Historic District.
• Gunston Hall – The home of George Mason, originator of the Virginia Bill of Rights, is listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark.
• Colchester Town Archaeological Site – The 18th century town of Colchester, chartered by Act of Assembly in 1753, was Fairfax County’s first planned community and an important port rivaling Alexandria.”
(June 3, 2014, Fairfax County)
All 4 heritage resources are located within several miles of one another, with Gunston Hall and Colchester south of the prison.
Gunston Hall and Colchester date back to the 18th century. Gunston Hall’s owner George Mason was a founding father of the United States.
(“The Founding Fathers: Virginia“, The Charters of Freedom, U.S. National Archives)
Gunston Hall was the center of the Mason family plantations that had as much as 15,000 acres of land at the time of George Mason, or George Mason IV, the 4th-generation family patriarch of that name:
“George Mason of Hollin Hall described the estate of his grandfather (Mason IV) as some 15,000 acres of the Very best land in the Potomac region, well improved and with large and comfortable mansions. There was in addition some 300 slaves, more than $50,000 in personal property and at least $30,000 in debts owed to the estate.”
(“The Colonial Plantations of George Mason“, Robert Morgan Moxham, George Mason’s Gunston Hall)
In George Mason IV’s era, Colchester was an important port town rivaling Alexandria, shipping tobacco to Europe:
“In the 1700s it was key port for the delivery of tobacco and other commodities to Europe.”
(“VIDEO: Archaeology Site on Old Colchester“, Garrett Johnson, May 5, 2011, Lorton Patch)
So I would not be surprised if some of the prison land had once belonged to large colonial plantations.
The George Washington family’s Mount Vernon plantation was located only a few more miles away, past Fort Belvoir to the east. In its hayday under George Washington’s management, it had about 7,600 acres, i.e., half the size of George Mason’s:
“Much of the land that would become George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate was held in the Washington family since 1674 when Thomas Lord Culpeper, proprietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia, granted 5000 acres of Potomac wilderness to Colonel Nicholas Spencer and Lieutenant Colonel John Washington. …
… In 1690, the tract was divided between the heirs of the two partners …
…
[George] Washington added more than 5000 acres to his estate, starting with his first purchase in 1757. Although he described Mount Vernon as around 8000 acres, the true figure was closer to 7600 or almost exactly twelve square miles.”
(“Growth of Mount Vernon“, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
Located between George Mason’s Gunston Hall and George Washington’s Mt. Vernon is a modest heritage site inside today’s municipality of Lorton and also listed in the 2013 Fairfax County planning document: Pohick Church.
The family church of both Mason and Washington, originally called Occoquan Church for its proximity to the Occoquan River, was the first church in the Truro Parish of the Anglican Church; Washington’s father Augustine sponsored its first rector, and during George Washington’s time it was moved farther away to the east across the Pohick Creek, though not as far as Mt. Vernon:
“Originally known as the Occaquan Church, the name was later changed to Pohick because it was relocated near Pohick Creek. … at the time of its inception it was simply known as an Anglican Church… Among the most notable attendees of Pohick were George Mason, William Fairfax, and George Washington.
The connection between the Washington family and Pohick Church can be traced back to the nomination of the first rector, Charles Green, who was sponsored by Augustine Washington (George Washington’s father) on August 19, 1736. Following in his father’s footsteps, George Washington became a vestryman of the Truro Parish in July of 1765. In 1732, the Virginia General Assembly designated the area north of the Occaquan River as the Truro Parish. Pohick, being the only church in that area at the time, became the Parish Church of Truro.
Part of the vestry’s responsibility was to oversee matters of money, maintenance, and the election of clergy. In addition to these duties, Washington was also entrusted with the title of Church Warden and was influential in the relocation of Pohick Church to its current site.”
(“Pohick Church“, Joseph M. Meyer, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
A different history account says the name changed while still at the old location.
(“History of Pohick Church“, Pohick Church)
George Washington was in Parish and Church management as a vestryman and a warden. There is a tale about his winning a debate over Mason to relocate the church to the northeast – by using population mathematics:
“History relates that when the change of site was made George Mason used his eloquence in favor of the old one, and George Washington answered him with a carefully drawn map, showing that the new place was the center of population. This argument won, and the present location was chosen. … The building committee, appointed in 1769, included George Washington, George Mason and George William Fairfax.”
(“The Old Pohick Church. Designed by George Washington and Built in 1772“, September 4, 1901, The Pittsburgh Press)
Today’s Cranford United Methodist Church is at the old Occoquan Church site. In the mid-1800s the Methodists shared Pohick Church, and then built their own at its old location:
“After the Methodists had held services in Pohick Church for a number of years, a Methodist circuit rider by the name of Rev. John Lewis saw the needs of the striving Methodists. He began work with the aim of building a church. He first started with meetings held in an old log schoolhouse, near “Hard Bargain,” on Colchester Road. In 1857, the first Methodist Church in this community was built. James and John Cranford did much of the work on the new church. The spot selected for it was the former location of the first Pohick Church. When the church was dedicated, it received the name of Lewis Chapel…”
(“Cranford’s History“, Cranford United Methodist Church)
The old Occoquan Church site is on Colchester Road, yup, halfway between Pohick Church to the northeast and the village of Colchester to the southwest, which in George Mason’s days was a thriving Occoquan River port rivaling Potomac River’s Alexandria 10 miles northeast of Mt. Vernon.
George Washington’s father and older brother were instrumental in the founding of Alexandria:
“The city of Alexandria, Virginia, is located on the Potomac River across from Washington D.C., approximately twenty miles north of Mount Vernon. … In 1732, all that existed on the future site of the town of Alexandria was a public tobacco warehouse near a ferry landing.
…
The planters of Fairfax County realized the advantages of developing a nearby market center. In 1748, Lawrence Washington submitted a petition to the House of Burgesses for the establishment of a town on sixty acres of land around Belhaven at Hunting Creek on the Potomac River, only a short ride from his home at Mount Vernon. The following year Lawrence’s younger brother George Washington assisted the county surveyor in laying out the town into eighty-four lots along ten streets around a central market square.”
(“Alexandria, Virginia“, Mason Faulkner Fields, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
George Washington frequented Alexandria and made significant contributions to it, including as a trustee:
“After service in the French and Indian War, Washington settled down at Mount Vernon and became a regular visitor to Alexandria. He was chosen as a town trustee in 1763. Two years later he was chosen as a burgess for Fairfax County.
…
In the years following the Revolution, Alexandria entered an era of significant prosperity. On April 15, 1791, the cornerstone of the nation’s new capitol was laid in Alexandria. …
… Washington also owned a pew at Christ Church in Alexandria, and in 1795 contributed to the building of the first permanent Catholic Church in Virginia. Washington was welcomed home from the presidency at a civic dinner held at the popular Gadsby’s Tavern, and returned there for a ball on his last birthday in 1799. On December 16, the Alexandria Gazette reported “the death of their illustrious benefactor.” Washington’s memorial service was held at the Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria.”
(Mason Faulkner Fields, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
Washington had a townhome in Alexandria. George Mason had become an Alexandria trustee in 1754, but with his Gunston Hall in the Colchester and Occoquan River region, he did not give special preference to Alexandria, says history scholar Andrew S. Veech:
“George Mason, the sagely statesman of Gunston Hall Plantation, not on rosy terms with Alexandria? How could it be? …
… After all, George Mason was very much a colonial Virginian – a fourth-generation Virginian, to be precise – so such attitudes about towns must certainly have colored his own. Unlike their Massacheusetts cousins, colonial Virginians did not quickly embrace the notion of town formation. … And the main cause for their disinterest, as we know, was the colony’s chief cash crop – tobacco.
Most Virginians earned their living farming tobacco, and profitable tobacco farming demanded lots of land. … The cumulative result of these land requirements was a dispersed Virginia population which was strung out along the banks of the colony’s waterways.
…
In general, Fairfax planters delivered their tobacco crops to the nearest, most convenient warehouse, regardless of whether or not it lay within a town. …
…
… The Fairfax County courthouse moved to Alexandria in 1752, a number of ordinaries sprang up along its streets throughout the decade, and by 1759 even a shipyard was in operation along the town’s riverbank.
… at Colchester, entrepreneur John Ballendine erected an impressive industrial complex known as the “Occoquan works,” which by 1759 included an iron furnace, a forge, two sawmills, and a bolting mill. In sum, Mason’s whole northern Virginia landscape was awash in urban growth during the 1750s, and there was nothing so especially unique about Alexandria’s growth at that time to suggest that it would succeed in the long-term, at the expense of its neighbors.
…
Real estate denoted Mason’s most tangible investment in Alexandria, and he bought three town lots there between 1752 and 1755 – one on the corner of King and Fairfax streets, and two on opposite corners of King and Royal streets. Mason retained these three properties just for a ten-year period, however, selling them all by October, 1762. Tradition has long held that one of these lots served as Mason’s town office, similar to George Washington’s townhouse on Cameron Street, but surviving documents do not substantiate this. Instead, they suggest that Mason leased these properties to tenants, and hence probably spent little time there himself.”
(“Viewing Alexandria from the Perspective of Gunston Hall: George Mason’s Association with the Colonial Port Town“, Andrew S Veech, Winter 1999, Historic Alexandria Quarterly)
Before becoming a trustee, George Mason had led the drive to move the Fairfax County courthouse to Alexandria, from Spring Fields.
(Mason Faulkner Fields, George Washington’s Mount Vernon; and,”The Fairfax County Courthouse“, Ross D. Netherton and Ruby Waldeck, July 1977, Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning)
Years later, Mason lobbied the Virginia Assembly to move the courthouse away because the Alexandria merchants and politicians had too much advantage over residents in the western part of the County:
“… the voice of the growing numbers of settlers in the western part of the county complained that Alexandria merchants gained at the expense of others by having the court meet in their town. George Mason of Gunston Hall felt that Alexandria politicians were building up too strong a hold on the machinery of County government, and sought the aid of members of the General Assembly to arrange for changing the location of the courthouse.”
(Ross D. Netherton and Ruby Waldeck, July 1977, Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning)
Despite George Mason’s valiant efforts, the Occoquan River region declined. The town Occoquan, with its 18th-century industrial complex of “Occoquan works” across the river from the 20th-century prison complex of Occoquan Workhouse, is today a small town with a historic district; the 18th-century Coccoquan port of Colchester, rivaling the Potomac port of Alexandria, is today a small village with a historic archaeological site.
So Irma Clifton’s modern dream of turning the former prison into a nationally popular arts center, tourist and movie-making destination and internet start-up center, better than Alexandria’s Torpedo Factory, would go against not only the current tourism trends but also the centuries of demographic changes in Virginia.
The changes started in George Mason’s era. Colchester had been founded by an older generation of George Masons and housed the Prince William County courthouse before the Occoquan River’s northeast side became Fairfax County:
“As the decade of the 1680 progressed, activity increased near the river’s mouth. Col. George Mason patented vast lands on the western and southern shores of the Potomac adjacent to the Occoquan for tobacco cultivation. In 1684, the Virginia Assembly required that Mason operate a boat across the Occoquan to ferry the soldiers and horses of the militia. … in 1691 the boat service at the river became a public ferry linking what was later to develop into Colchester and Woodbridge on the north and south banks, respectively.
…
… in 1731, the Virginia Assembly had created Prince William County, placing the county court, prison, pillory, and stocks on the north bank of the Occoquan River at the ferry landing. All this activity near the mouth of the Occoquan was substantial enough soon after this period that landowners petitioned the Virginia Assembly to lay out a town on its banks in both 1740 and 1742. Competing merchants to the south objected, but a compromise was reached that ultimately created the town of Colchester at the ferry landing on the north bank. At the same time the Virginia Assembly created another county, Fairfax, with its border marked by the Occoquan River and Bull Run.”
(Earnie Porta, Occoquan, 2010, Arcadia Publishing)
The Occoquan River is a tributary of the Potomac River and as in Earnie Porta’s book, from 1910 on it was officially referred to as a creek, until a local campaign restored its river status in the 1970s.
Interesting timing of the name downgrade to Occoquan Creek, in the year the D.C. prison arrived.
The Mason family also had a plantation at Woodbridge across the river mouth from Colchester.
(“Woodbridge“, George Mason’s Gunston Hall)
About 2 miles upriver from Woodbridge is the town of Occoquan, the site of the “Occoquan works”. It got its start from mining exploration across the river – on the side the Lorton prison – farther north, and tobacco warehousing:
“Attracted by the apparent presence of copper farther north, Carter established a landing below the falls of the Occoquan and pushed a road north to the mines––today’s Ox Road, Virginia 123. …
… Virginia’s Tabacco Inspection Act of 1730 required that tobacco be marketed only at public warehouses where it was subject to inspection and stored for sale. In 1734, authorities established one of these warehouses at the site of Carter’s copper mine landing on the Occquan…
…
John Ballendine was a beneficiary of Tayloe family financing. In 1755, he bought out the warehouse property on the southern bank of the river, as well as some other local holdings, and constructed an iron furnace, a forge, gristmills, and sawmills near the falls of the Occoquan. … During the 1760s, in fact, Tayloe and his partner added more than 2,500 acres to the Occoquan Company holdings largely to meet their charcoal needs. It was not enough. … When the American Revolution reached its conclusion, it was clear that the Occoquan ironworks were past their prime.
… John Ballendine’s operations eventually passed through several hands, until by the end of the 18th century, they belonged to the Quaker Nathaniel Ellicott. Taking advantage of the spread of wheat cultivation in the backcountry, Ellicott converted the Occoquan works to milling operations. His main mill may have been the first automated mill in the young United States of America.”
(Earnie Porta, 2010, Arcadia Publishing)
Industries at the Occoquan town were too dependent on local resources and did not sustain well. But the automated flour mill, possibly a U.S. first, attracted Washington’s attention. His Mt. Vernon plantation purchased a license from the inventor, Oliver Evans of Delaware, studied the Occoquan mill, and installed what is now known as George Washington’s Gristmill:
“The new system was invented by Oliver Evans, a Delaware native… The system also improved the quality and quantity of flour that could be produced in a mill. George Washington learned of Evans’ improvements in 1790, when he reviewed and signed the patent application submitted to the newly-established United States Patent Office.
In addition to the patent review, Washington was aware of two mills already operating on the Evans system during the years of his first term as President. One was located near Mount Vernon in the village of Occoquan and the other was located along the Brandywine Valley near Wilmington, Delaware. The mill was owned by Joseph Tatnall, a wealthy miller, businessman, and devout Quaker. In 1777, Tatnall ground flour for Washington’s troops as they suffered through the winter at Valley Forge.
…
Washington purchased a license under the patent Evans had received, and by late summer of 1791 installation of the Evans system was well underway. Washington’s millwright William Ball inspected the merchant mill at Occoquan to review the Evans machinery in detail, providing a template for his work at Washington’s mill. In addition, two of Oliver Evans’s brothers traveled to Mount Vernon to oversee the installation. At the time Washington’s gristmill was one of only a handful of mills in the United States running the new automated system.”
(“Overview of the Gristmill“, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
As for the Lorton prison land upriver from Colchester and across from the Occoquan town, at least one small part of it had a historic association with the landowners at Pohick Church, including Rev. Charles Green, William Fairfax, the Mason family, and a Revolutionary friend of George Washington.
According to a 2009 report by John Milner Associates, which had prepared DC Workhouse and Reformatory’s 2005 submission to the National Register of Historic Places, a land parcel of 960 acres was originally obtained in 1742 by Rev. Charles Green, Pohick Church’s first rector sponsored by George Washington’s father; the land was then sold to William Fairfax, and changed hands several times until it was bought by William Lindsay:
“Laurel Hill is part of the 960 acres patented by Reverend Charles Green in 1742. Reverend Green later conveyed this parcel to William Fairfax, Esquire, who in turn, devised the tract to his children Bryan and Hannah. It is from Bryan and Hannah Fairfax that Hector Ross purchased the same 960-acre parcel. Reverend Green, the Fairfaxes, and Mr. Ross were presumably all speculators, holding the land as an investment, possibly seating the property with tenant farmers, but likely residing elsewhere.
Hector Ross sold the 960-tract to William Lindsay in two parts. In October 1787, Ross sold 303 acres, with appurtenances, to William Lindsay for £150. In February 1790, Ross sold the remaining 657 acres to Lindsay for £100.”
(“Laurel Hill Cultural Landscape Report“, John Milner Associates, Inc., June 2009, Fairfax County)
William Fairfax was the father-in-law of George Washington’s brother Lawrence, and his Belvoir plantation site is in Fort Belvoir Historic District, one of the 4 major heritage resources listed in the 2013 Fairfax County planning document. In 1935 the U.S. military renamed its base there Fort Belvoir after archaeological studies and a Gunston Hall visit by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
(“Fairfax family“, Mason Faulkner Fields, George Washington’s Mount Vernon; and, “Inter-War Period: 1919-1939“, Fort Belvoir)
William Lindsay, a Colchester tradesman and businessman, and a military Major in the American Revolution, named his plantation Laurel Hill:
“Lindsay married Ann Calvert, great-granddaughter of Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, in 1766.
During the Revolutionary War, William Lindsay served as a Major in the Virginia Militia. … In 1785 and 1791, William Lindsay held a tavern license in Colchester, even though he had purchased his estate, which he called “Laurel Hill” by that time.”
(John Milner Associates, Inc., June 2009, Fairfax County)
According to Irma Clifton in a 2011 article, when George Washington led his army marching south to Yorktown, Virginia – for the deciding battle of the Revolutionary War – via the ferry from Colchester to Woodbridge, Lindsay was the ferry master:
“During the Revolutionary War, the Colchester ferry was used to transport General George Washington and Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau and their troops across the Occoquan on their march from Newport, Rhode Island to Yorktown, Virginia. The ferry master for that crossing was William Lindsay of Laurel Hill Plantation.”
(“Colchester’s Former Life as Port on the Potomac“, Irma Clifton, June 9, 2011, Lorton Patch)
A letter to George Washington from Daniel McCarty on February 22, 1784, regarding a scheduled Truro Parish Vestry meeting at William Lindsay’s tavern in Colchester, reminded Washington that it was long overdue because Washington and others had been away, and that some of the poor who depended on the church could perish:
“Tomorrow is appointed for us to have a Vestry the Place of meeting is to be at Wm Lindsay’s in Colchester by 11 Oclock, it was attempted five or six times last fall, but you and Mr Hendersons, both being out of the County we never could get a Sufficient Number of the Gentlemen to meet to make a Vestry, by Which means the Poor Suffers Very much, and Some of them must Inevitabley Perish without they Can have some assistance, I must therefore beg your attendance if you can Possibly make it Convenient…”
(“To George Washington from Daniel McCarty, 22 February 1784“, Daniel McCarty, February 22, 1784, Founders Online, U.S. National Archives)
Such were some of the early days of the United States of America.
In the early 1800s, Wlliam Lindsay’s widow Ann Calvert Lindsay received a 166-acre “Lot 1” of the Laurel Hill estate, a lot for which documents show eventually became a part of the Lorton prison land.
Probably in the 1810s, “Lot 1” was sold to Thomas F. Mason, who in the 1820s sold it to James Dawson, now interned at Cranford Methodist Church Cemetery, i.e., the church at the old Occoquan Church site:
“Around October 1813, the real estate of William Lindsay was divided among his heirs. His widow, Ann Calvert Lindsay, received the dower right to “Lot 1,” 166 acres and 92 poles. …
After Anne Calvert Lindsay’s death, “Lot 1” was to be divided between sons Hiram and Thomas. It appears that Ann Calvert Lindsay did not retain her dower right, because Hiram Lindsay sold “Lot 1” to Robert Ratcliffe. Hiram Lindsay died ca. 1813-1814, so this transaction took place soon after William Lindsay’s real estate was divided among his heirs. Robert Ratcliffe then sold the property to Thompson F. Mason. In January 1827, James Dawson purchased “Lot 1” from Mason for $1,000. … James Dawson, purchaser of “Lot 1″ in 1824, is recorded as dying at Laurel Hill in February 1830. He is buried at the Cranford Methodist Church Cemetery, along with his wife Margaret, who died much later in 1885.”
(John Milner Associates, Inc., June 2009, Fairfax County)
It seemed the Methodists took over from the Anglicans when properties became older, or smaller.
Thomson Francis Mason, known as Thomas F. Mason, who owned this “lot 1” for a time, was a grandson of George Mason IV and a successful lawyer in Alexandria, later serving as the Mayor and then as a founding Judge of the Criminal Court of District of Columbia:
“Born at Gunston Hall in 1785, Thomson Francis Mason grew up at Hollin Hall built by his father General Thomson Mason. After graduating from Princeton in 1807, Thomas F. Mason returned to Virginia and began his law practice in the region of Fairfax County. … As one of the area’s most prominent lawyers, Mason played an important role during the 1820’s in the fight to separate Alexandria from the District of Columbia. Mason became increasingly involved in political activities and he served for two terms as the Mayor of Alexandria. Only six months before his death in 1838 he was appointed as Judge of the newly organized Criminal Court of the District of Columbia.”
(“Huntley“, 1972, National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form, National Park Service)
Well over half a century late, but one in the Mason family finally became a top Alexandria lawyer and politician – the type of persons his grandfather had loathed. The family plantation Hollin Hall Thomas F. Mason had grown up in was 676 acres near Alexandria, next to the Washington family’s property, and previously rented to tenants in his grandfather’s time.
(“Hollin Hall“, George Mason’s Gunston Hall)
Excelling in Alexandria, Thomas F. Mason and his cousin George Mason VI also put out a newspaper ad in 1833 to try to sell Gunston Hall, their grandfather’s pride, the reigning family plantation in the Occoquan region, or 2,000 acres of it:
“… on the Potomac 12 miles below DC, 2000 acres – description – for terms apply with Thomas F. Mason of Alexandria or George Mason of Gunston at the Occoquan Post Office …”
(“GUNSTON FOR SALE“, October 30, 1833, Daily National Intelligencer)
In 1833, 2,000 acres could be all that was left of Gunston Hall. When the plantation was eventually sold it was only 1,000 acres, in 1866 a year after the end of the Civil War, which had wreaked havoc to it. The new owners, William Merrill and William Dawson, let black families live on the mansion’s first floor:
“There are references that Eleanor Ann Clifton Patton Mason lived for a time in Louisiana, leaving the care of Gunston Hall in the hands of a Manager. In the neighborhood, there were references that she rented out part of the house to the Rev. Mr. Johnson, rector of Pohick Church, in her later years. …
Damage to the estate during the Civil War is mentioned in several accounts. … A more reasonable perspective credits both sides for damage: “During the late war, the house, from its position between the hostile lines, was alternately occupied by the soldiers of both armies, and this resulted in serious injury to the building and the grounds.”
A year after the end of the Civil War, Eleanor A. C. Patton Mason died and was buried in the Mason family graveyard on the estate. At this time, George Mason Graham sold Gunston Hall out of the family, ending over one hundred and fifty years of Mason family occupation on the neck.
…
The condition of Gunston Hall when the Mason family sold it in 1866 is hard to document. The first non-Mason owners were men whose only interest in the property was for its valuable timber. William Merrill and William Dawson bought the 1,000 acre estate in August from Graham: “With a reservation of the grave yard and a right of way thereto, the said reservation being as follows:….., and it is understood and agreed by the parties hereto that the cedar trees surrounding said grave yard shall never be cut down or disturbed in any manner whatsoever.” The purchase price was $15,000.
From local legends and parcels of information, it seems that the new owners’ only concern was to make a quick profit. There are references that “the Hall was occupied with 4 colored families in the first floor & two white families on the second floor & a boarding house for their workmen.””
(“Report on GUNSTON HALL, Copied from GREAT GEORGIAN HOUSES OF AMERICA, 1933“, Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service)
Gunston Hall’s last Mason family owner, Eleanor Ann Clifton Patton Mason, was the second wife of George Mason VI, whose first wife was cousin Elizabeth Thomson Mason, Thomas F. Mason’s sister.
(Genealogies of Virginia Families – From Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, 1981, Genealogical Publishing Co.; and, “Thomson Mason“, Mason Web, George Mason’s Gunston Hall)
So most likely Thomas F. Mason and his cousin George Mason VI failed to sell Gunston Hall with 2,000 acres one year before the latter’s death in 1834; Thomas F. Mason died 4 years later, in 1838 after only 6 months as a D.C. criminal court judge, and whatever the two had planned in 1833 with their Gunston Hall for-sale ad was gone with them.
Gunston Hall ownership’s falling outside the Mason family may have been a more complicated story.
The Mason family genealogy shows that for the first time since George Mason I, the reigning family patriarch George Mason’s first son was not named the same: George Mason VI had named his eldest son John McCarty Mason, and his second son George Thomson Mason, both mothered by Elizabeth Thomson Mason. But both died in their 20s after their parents’ deaths, with their stepmother Eleanor Ann Clifton Patton Mason the head of the family. Eleanor Clifton Patton Mason’s son Richard Barnes Patton Mason also died in his 20s.
(“George Mason VI“, Mason Web, George Mason’s Gunston Hall)
Fort Mason in Texas was named for U.S. Military Academy graduate George Thomson Mason, killed in a battle with Mexicans.
(“Gunston Grapevine“, Summer 2012, George Mason’s Gusnton Hall)
So there was no more living direct male heir to George Mason VI when Gunston Hall was sold by George Mason Graham, George Mason VI’s half-brother outside the Mason family: a one-time Brigadier General in the Louisiana military, he was son of George Mason VI’s mother from her remarriage to George Graham, a Virginian military man once serving as acting U.S. Secretary of War under President James Monroe.
(1981, Genealogical Publishing Co.; Barry Cowan, Louisiana State University, 2013, Arcadia Publishing; and, “GRAHAM, GEORGE“, The Handbook of Texas)
But intriguingly, two of George Mason VI’s daughters, all by first wife Elizabeth Thomson Mason, were alive and the youngest, Sally Eilbeck Mason, married a second uncle, George Mason, a few months after brother George Thomson Mason’s death in 1846 – but apparently still unable to keep Gunston Hall in the Mason family.
As Irma Clifton pointed out in her 2011 article, Colchester – near the Gunston Hall area and rivaling Alexandria in the era of George Mason of the American Revolution – pretty much disappeared during George Mason VI’s time:
“After the Revolutionary War, John Hooe began operating a ferry further upstream near the falls of the Occoquan. Still later, a bridge was constructed by mill owner Nathaniel Ellicott who also managed to acquire the stagecoach and mail contracts along the new public road running between Alexandria and Dumfries. Not to be outdone, Thomas Mason, in 1795, proposed to build a toll bridge from Colchester to his land in Prince William County and obtained approval from the legislature to do so. The bridge was in use by 1798 but unfortunately, was washed away in a heavy rainstorm in 1807 and was not rebuilt as most river crossings were taking place near the Town of Occoquan by then.
After the loss of the bridge, Colchester became a town in decline, helped along by the closing of the post office, loss of traffic to the river crossing at Occoquan, river sedimentation and new routes of transport for flour and other produce. The town subsequently suffered a decrease in population. A devastating fire in 1815 just about sounded the death knell for the town as an entity.”
(Irma Clifton, June 9, 2011, Lorton Patch)
It’s unclear if William Dawson, Gunston Hall’s new co-owner in 1866, was related to the presumed Methodist James Dawson who had bought from Thomas F. Mason the Laurel Hill “Lot 1”.
In the 1870s, the 166-acre Laurel Hill “lot 1” was sold to a German immigrant woman, who then married farmer J. Mason Kilby; the property was valued at $800 in 1880:
“In March 1873, the heirs of James Dawson—his widow and six children—sold “Lot 1″ to Theresa Dexler for $2,462.44. Theresa Dexler was born in Germany, and married J. Mason Kilby around 1877. The Kilbys lived at Laurel Hill and continued to farm the land. The 1880 Population Census lists this household as Mason Kilby, a 47-year-old farmer, his wife, Theresa, and 21-year-old Eugene Terrell, a farm worker. The Agricultural Census for the same year describes the property as having 60 acres of tilled land and 104 acres of woodland. The farm was valued at $800, including buildings.”
(John Milner Associates, Inc., June 2009, Fairfax County)
It’s unclear if J. Mason Kilby, with the Mason middle name, had any relation to the old Mason family of Gunston Hall.
In early 20th century on March 1906, “Lot 1” was sold to lawyer Howe Totten of Washington, D.C., and became his championship dog-and-horse farm:
“Washington, D.C., lawyer Howe Totten and his wife Priscilla purchased the 164-acre, 26-pole property from the Kilbys in March 1906. Howe Totten worked in Washington, D.C., and may have maintained an additional residence there, but he lived with his wife and children lived at Laurel Hill, where he bred championship Great Danes and thoroughbred horses.”
(John Milner Associates, Inc., June 2009, Fairfax County)
Then things turned ugly 4 years later with the prison’s arrival as Totten’s adjoining neighbor, the new progressive policy of reformation letting the DC Workhouse inmates go around the open grounds. Their presence was threatening to the neighborhood from Totten’s viewpoint, and repeatedly some inmates escaped and went onto his property. So on March 17, 1911, a complaint by Totten was published in the Fairfax Herald newspaper:
“In April 1910, the District of Columbia municipal government purchased 1,155 acres along the Occoquan River for use as a Workhouse to house the city’s prisoners convicted of non-violent crimes with sentences of less than one year. This parcel adjoined Howe Totten’s property along his southeastern boundary. The first prisoners arrived at the D.C. Workhouse in August 1910 and were originally housed in tents. The Workhouse was a Progressive institution that followed an open-air policy. Prisoners were housed in open dormitories and worked outdoors, constructing buildings, making bricks, and farming. The Workhouse is noted on a 1915 soil map of Fairfax County, prior to the construction of the Reformatory.
The open-air system led to friction between Howe Totten and his institutional neighbor. In a letter published in the Fairfax Herald in March 1911, Totten complained that the proximity to the District Workhouse at Occoquan made the neighborhood dangerous. He also mentioned the “unguarded manner in which the inmates are permitted to go about,” and the fact that convicts escaped repeatedly and trespassed on his property.”
(John Milner Associates, Inc., June 2009, Fairfax County)
The U.S. government’s solution to this problem was to “condemn”, i.e., take away, most of Howe Totten’s land, 153.68 acres, for its 1914 prison expansion – unclear if financial compensation was given. The remaining, 10.09 acres, was bought by the government in 1919 for $490.50:
“Totten did not get the relief that he sought—greater restrictions on the movements of the convicts held at the Workhouse—but in January 1914, 153.68 acres of his property were condemned for use as the D.C. Reformatory. The remaining 10.09 acres of Totten’s property were purchased by D.C. for expansion of the Reformatory in March 1919 for $490.50.”
(John Milner Associates, Inc., June 2009, Fairfax County)
Given that this “Lot 1” had been part of a 960-acre parcel first owned by Pohick Church’s Rev. Charles Green, I would think it highly likely the rest also went to the Lorton prison in one manner or another, when its land expanded to 2,550 acres in 1914.
The 18th-century Laurel Hill mansion became a residence for prison officials, and is now in the DC Workhouse and Reformatory historic district.
This is a Virginia rural region where large swaths of land had historically been associated with the family of George Mason, a founding father of the United States of America, to a lesser degree also with George Washington, and certainly with the family church of both Mason and Washington; then in early 20th century it was chosen for the U.S. Capital prison, and land was acquired by the U.S. government with little regard for its historic value.
As progressive as the new open-air policy was for prisoner reformation, a few decades later the Lorton prison deteriorated to like a rundown D.C. neighborhood:
“D.C. convicts used to refer to a prison term at Lorton as “sweet time.” For some, it was a home away from home; the place acquired a ruinous familiarity. At one point in the ’80s, it boasted a recidivism rate of 90 percent. With its aging buildings, poor food, and constant threat of violence, Lorton was, many former inmates insist, not much different from the impoverished neighborhoods and housing projects where they grew up. In fact, in some ways it was practically identical: It was not uncommon for two former neighbors to end up in the same dormitory, one as an inmate, the other as a corrections officer. Even more often, alliances from the street–and rivalries–carried over inside the cellblocks.”
(Annys Shin, March 9, 2001, Washington City Paper)
Doing “sweet time” still with the gangs, and with a 90% rate of reoffence, that was no reform at all – Maybe lawyer Howe Totten had foresight.
Obviously the prison complex provided employment for Lorton locals like Irma Clifton, but redeveloping into a center of tourism and cultural attraction would be much more than historic preservation. How would other local Virginians feel about the prison legacy becoming their fame?
In 2005, the non-profit Lorton Arts Foundation headed by Clifton planning to turn the prison to an arts complex received Fairfax County money for site maintenance:
“Trying to make something beautiful out of what was once a place for those who committed ugly actions, the Lorton Arts Foundation is one step closer to achieving its dream of an artistic complex at the former Lorton prison site.
On Monday, Sept. 12, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors appropriated $500,000 from the Fiscal Year 2006 budget to the Lorton Arts Foundation to be used for the maintenance of the site and some of the buildings there, said Tina Leone, executive director of the foundation.
…
THE RENOVATION of the former Lorton Prison site will consist of several phases, the first of which will cost about $37 million and will include working on 15 buildings in one of the quadrangles of the site.
…
Eventually, Leone and the board of the Lorton Arts Foundation envision a performing arts center along the lines of Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna.
…
The $500,000 grant from the Board of Supervisors was contingent upon the Foundation raising the same amount of funding on its own, said Sharon Mason, artistic administrator for the Lorton Arts Foundation.
…
Receiving the funding from the Board of Supervisors shows that the county is putting its money where its mouth is,” said Lorton Arts Foundation president Irma Clifton. …
Many people who live in the Lorton area are “anxious” to see the construction begin, Clifton said. “The county is currently working on widening Ox Road, which opens up to a vista and gives a much better view of the site,” she said.”
(“Painting a Future in Laurel Hill“, September 21, 2005, Connection Newspapers)
Irma Clifton would like everyone driving by on Ox Road, Virginia Highway 123, to get a clear view of the former D.C. prison.
The Foundation envisioned transforming it to the level of a national park for the performing arts. But where could that kind of money come from, $37 million just for the first of several phases?
It would be major venture financing, with a $26 million bond issue in 2006 for the initial conversion of a 55-acre site to an arts campus, to be paid back through arts revenue and fundraising:
“For residents of the southern Fairfax County community surrounding the 2,400-acre complex, it perpetuated the area’s reputation as “the armpit” of an otherwise thriving county, said Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon).
Yesterday, Fairfax officials inaugurated an effort to redeem the prison’s bleak legacy by reinventing 55 acres of Lorton as an arts campus. Over 15 months, the Lorton Arts Foundation plans to convert the prison dormitories and gymnasium into artists’ studios, galleries, performance spaces and a museum documenting a key part of the prison’s history.
The county, which bought the Lorton site from the federal government in 1998, is leasing a portion of the old prison to the arts foundation. It also approved the sale of $26 million in revenue bonds to finance the initial redevelopment. The bonds are backed by revenue expected from studio leases and fundraising by the foundation and through state tax credits for historic preservation.”
(“The Art of Rehabilitation“, Bill Turque, September 17, 2006, The Breaking News Blog, The Washington Post)
It would be a first-class artistic preservation of Fairfax County’s big ‘eyesore’, to paraphrase Gerald W. Hyland, County Supervisor for Mt. Vernon District, who marveled:
“This is absolutely a remarkable day”.
(To be continued in Part 4)
Feng Gao's Posts - Rites of Spring 