(This post was originally written and posted on my Facebook community page, Arts and the Community, and Fashion Statements, on January 12, 2015.)
With a $26 million bond issue sponsored by Fairfax County, and a $1-million annual matching grant for site maintainence, in 2007 the Lorton Arts Foundation looked set to launch its Workhouse Arts Center at the former District of Columbia Correctional Complex in Lorton, Virginia:
“Fairfax County, which bought the Lorton site from the federal government in 2001, is leasing the workhouse buildings to the arts foundation and approved the sale of $26 million in bonds to finance the initial redevelopment. It also gives the group a matching grant of $1 million yearly for maintenance of the buildings, for now.”
(“Lorton Prison Reformed Into Arts Center“, Annie Gowen, August 23, 2007, The Washington Post)
What would $26m get for an artistic complex?
“The closing of the penal complex and the region’s overall development boom fostered a blossoming in Lorton…
Signs up and down Ox Road now advertise new subdivisions of million-dollar houses near the area now called Laurel Hill.
“When we first started, we thought we were entering a depressed area. There weren’t any houses out here at all,” said Sharon Mason, the Workhouse Arts Center’s executive arts director. “Now new homes nearby are selling from $1 to $2 million. We’re taking a look at our programming with the mindset of . . . what does this community want?”
…
The arts center will likely be one of the most high-profile amenities in Laurel Hill, where organizers envision not just studio spaces for artists but also two restaurants, a theater, an event center, music programming in a nearby barn, a museum and lofts where artists can live and work.
Many of those features are in the distant future, organizers say. For now, the Lorton Arts Foundation is finishing construction of the 10 brick buildings that will be artists’ studios, office space and the exhibit gallery.”
(Annie Gowen, August 23, 2007, The Washington Post)
The distant-future goal was a high-profile cultural and entertainment center in an affluent community, but the initial financial borrowing was for a basic artists’ facility.
To pay for it, the Foundation envisioned revenue from arts classes and shows:
“[Foundaton executive officer Tina] Leone said that the foundation’s goal is to be self-sustaining and that fundraising and fees from classes and programming would cover the bulk of the debt service on the $26 million bond, as well as operating costs.
Officials expect about 150,000 visitors in early years. In contrast, the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, which sits on a spot well-trafficked by tourists, draws 500,000 yearly visitors.”
(Annie Gowen, August 23, 2007, The Washington Post)
A working artists’ facility would not generate much revenue; Fairfax County had concluded the make-or-break factor would be fundraising:
“A 2005 analysis by Fairfax County budget staff concluded that the project would succeed only if the foundation “is successful in an on-going fundraising campaign” …
The foundation hopes to raise at least $1.9 million annually after the first five years, which would be more than half its total expenses, the report said. If it fails, the county could reassume control of the buildings at a cost of nearly $10 million, which would be offset by some operating income, the report said.
An audit last year showed that the foundation raised $618,595 in 2005 and $1,042,220 last year.”
(Annie Gowen, August 23, 2007, The Washington Post)
The Lorton Arts Foundation fundraised in a big way, lining up dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov for a performance:
“The center has launched a schedule of painting, drawing and yoga classes in a borrowed space at a nearby shopping center; students and teachers will likely move into renovated classrooms on the 55-acre site later this fall. On Sept. 28, a black-tie fundraising gala will feature a performance by dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, an early supporter.
…
The gala will be in a former prison gym, where organizers dream of adding heating and air-conditioning and theater seats. For now the digs will remain rustic, although a dance floor was bought to protect Baryshnikov’s toes.”
(Annie Gowen, August 23, 2007, The Washington Post)
Fundraising gala in an old prison gym with no air-conditioning, but with a new dance floor for Mikhail Baryshnikov, what ambition!
Some local experts expressed skepticism that regional fundraising could suffice:
“Some experts have privately expressed skepticism, noting that the foundation will not only have to compete with other organizations building arts facilities — such as an endowment campaign by George Mason University, which is planning a $56 million performing arts center at its Prince William County campus — but private groups searching for money for other Laurel Hill projects. …
“It’s going to be hard, just like it’s hard for us,” said Brian Marcus, associate dean for development at George Mason’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Fundraisers for GMU and its local partners, Manassas and Prince William County, have raised $5 million of the planned $15 million for the opera center’s endowment but are still seeking $4 million for construction.”
(Annie Gowen, August 23, 2007, The Washington Post)
As George Mason University’s Brian Marcus politely suggested, the legacy of George Mason – a United States founding father, of the Gunston Hall plantation near Lorton as earlier reviewed – loomed large that the former DC Workhouse and Reformatory would have to compete with on the fundraising stage – obviously from an inferior position.
Furthermore, George Mason’s wealthy tobacco plantation days were long gone. As of 2007, Fairfax County’s arts market lagged far behind similar U.S. regions’:
““Fundraising is highly competitive right now, especially in an area like Northern Virginia with the construction industry the way it is right now,” Marcus said. Developers used to be good targets for fundraisers, but “they’re not feeling as comfortable making significant gifts right now, so the timing is not the greatest,” …
The market might be there, and there is room for growth in Fairfax County, where the arts are a $77.5 million industry, according to a recent study by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit advocacy group. Nationally, the average for communities with populations of more than a million is $267 million.
Jim Steele, a board member of the Arts Council of Fairfax County, said the southeastern end of the county has been underserved for a long time. The demand for reasonably priced studio and exhibit space in Northern Virginia remains high, he said. The Torpedo Factory has a long waiting list of artists wanting studio space.”
(Annie Gowen, August 23, 2007, The Washington Post)
A $77.5 million arts industry in Fairfax County versus the national average of $267 million, but no shortage of artists – a long waiting list at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, where the Fairfax County courthouse was in George Mason’s era as previously reviewed.
But Alexandria is no longer in Fairfax County. As reviewed before, George Washington’s family had been instrumental in founding the Potomac River port town in eastern Fairfax County; it was then brought by Washington, the founding U.S. president, into the U.S. capital District of Columbia, was later returned to Virginia and is today an independent city in Virginia:
“In 1791, George Washington included portions of the City of Alexandria in what was to become the District of Columbia. That portion was given back to Virginia in 1846 and the City of Alexandria was re-chartered in 1852. In 1870, the City of Alexandria became independent of Alexandria County, with the remainder of the County changing its name to Arlington County in 1920.”
(“Northern Virginia Hazard Mitigation Plan Update, Chapter 3: Regional Information”, 2012, City of Alexandria)
President Washington had the interest of the city, one the busiest U.S. ports, at his heart, personally ensuring its inclusion in the capital D.C.:
“The Residence Act of July 16, 1790, as amended March 3, 1791, authorized President George Washington to select a 100-square-mile site for the national capital on the Potomac River between Alexandria, Virginia, and Williamsport, Maryland. President Washington selected the southernmost location within these limits, so that the capital would include all of present-day Old Town Alexandria, then one of the four busiest ports in the country. Acting on instructions from Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Major Andrew Ellicott began surveying the ten-mile square on February 12, 1791.”
(“Boundary Stones of the District of Columbia”, boundarystones.org)
Alexandria’s Christ Church was founded in 1751 by the Anglican Truro Parish based at Pohick Church, the family church of both Mason and Washington, like the D.C. prison in today’s Lorton northeast of the Occoquan River, a border with Prince William County as previously reviewed.
(“History of Pohick Church”, Pohick Church)
According to his step-grandaughter and adopted daughter Nelly Custis-Lewis, George Washington religiously attended Sunday services at Pohick Church or Christ Church:
“Truro Parish is the one in which Mount Vernon, Pohick Church, and Woodlawn are situated. Fairfax Parish is now Alexandria. Before the Federal District was ceded to Congress, Alexandria was in Fairfax County. General Washington had a pew in Pohick Church, and one in Christ Church at Alexandria. He was very instrumental in establishing Pohick Church, and I believe subscribed largely. His pew was near the pulpit. I have a perfect recollection of being there, before his election to the presidency, with him and my grandmother. It was a beautiful church, and had a large, respectable, and wealthy congregation, who were regular attendants.
He attended the church at Alexandria when the weather and roads permitted a ride of ten miles. In New York and Philadelphia he never omitted attendance at church in the morning, unless detained by indisposition. The afternoon was spent in his own room at home; the evening with his family, and without company. Sometimes an old and intimate friend called to see us for an hour or two; but visiting and visitors were prohibited for that day.”
(“George Washington’s Adopted Daughter Discusses Washington’s Religious Character”, Nelly Custis-Lewis, February 26, 1833, Constitution Society)
Ironically, the American Revolution led by Washington and others ended the official church status in the U.S. for Britain’s Anglican Church, to which Pohick Church and Christ Church belonged. The U.S. Anglican Church separated from the Church of England and was renamed the Episcopal Church. Declines ensued; many parishes were disbanded. Fortunately, the beautiful Pohick Church with a wealthy congregation as Nelly Custis-Lewis noted, continued to thrive, no doubt supported by its members’ wealth:
“After the Revolutionary War, with the Religious Freedom Act of 1785, Virginia formally disestablished the Church of England as the official church of the Commonwealth. Episcopal churches (as they came to be called) underwent difficult times. Deprived of their clergy, their church lands often seized, many congregations totally disbanded. Still, services continued at Pohick, with Parson Mason Locke Weems, Washington’s first biographer (and first raconteur of the famous Cherry Tree story), taking services on occasion from the turn of the nineteenth century until as late as 1817.
One worshiper at the time, John Davis, describes the persevering vitality of parish life at Pohick in 1801: “About eight miles from Occoquan Mills is a place of worship called Powhick Church. Thither I rode on Sunday and joined the congregation of Parson Weems, a Minister of the Episcopal persuasion, who was cheerful in his mein that he might win men to religion. A Virginia Churchyard on Sunday resembles rather a race-course than a sepulchral ground . . . . [thus] I was confounded on first entering the Churchyard to hear ‘Steed threaten Steed with high and boastful neigh.’ Nor was I less stunned with the rattling of carriage-wheels, the cracking of whips and the vociferations of the gentlemen . . . . But the discourse of Parson Weems calmed every perturbation, for he preached the great doctrines of Salvation as one who had experienced their power.””
(“History of Pohick Church”, Pohick Church)
The American Revolution also led to major changes in the lives of black people, and in his book traveler John Davis also wrote of impressions of blacks at Pohick Church:
“… the ladies come to it in carriages, and the men after dismounting from their horses make them fast to the trees. …
…
… and the vociferations of the gentlemen to the negroes who accompanied them. But the discourse of Parson Weems calmed every perturbation; for he preached the great doctrines of Salvation …
Of the congregation at Powheek Church, about one half was composed of white people, and the other of negroes. …
After church I made my salutation to Parson Weems, and having turned the discourse to divine worship, I asked him his opinion of the piety of the blacks. “Sir,” said he, “no people in this country prize the sabbath more seriously than the trampled-upon negroes. They are swift to hear; they seem to hear as for their lives. They are wakeful, serious, reverent, and attentive in God’s house; and gladly embrace opportunities of hearing his word. Oh! it is sweet preaching, when people are desirous of hearing! Sweet feeding the flock of Christ, when they have so good an appetite!””
(John Davis, Travels of Four Years and a Half: In the United States of America; During 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802, 1803, Applewood Books)
No mention of white-black segregation at the Sunday service beyond their being two halves – “in God’s house” according to the famed Rev. Parson Mason Locke Weems.
The church segregation standard of that era, if blacks were allowed in a white church at all, was their sitting in the back or in the balconies, according to filmmaker Marilyn Mellowes:
“Some white owners allowed the enslaved to worship in white churches, where they were segregated in the back of the building or in the balconies.”
(“The Black Church”, Marilyn Mellowes, God in America, PBS)
Pohick Church’s own history account notes that part of the black half Davis saw in 1801 had been recently freed by George Washington’s widow Martha:
“Undoubtedly those in the second group included many former slaves freed by Martha Washington on January 1st of that same year.”
(“History of Pohick Church”, Pohick Church)
That could be why so many blacks were desirous in Pohick Church, that many were now free persons.
When George Washington took control of his Mount Vernon family plantation in 1757, Fairfax County had a large slave population, around 28% of the total, growing to over 40% by the American Revolution’s end. Washington was both a large land owner – with around 7,600 acres, about half of George Mason’s 15,000 acres as previously cited – and a major slave owner, by the time of his 1799 death owning 318 slaves, about 90% of the Mt. Vernon plantation population.
(“George Washington and Slavery”, Mary V. Thompson, George Washington’s Mount Vernon; and, “The private Lives of George Washington’s Slaves”, Mary V. Thompson, Frontline, PBS)
But most of the slaves were not exactly Washington’s but his wife’s, from his January 1759 marriage to wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis:
“… It was after his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis in January of 1759 that Washington’s slaveholdings increased dramatically. His young bride was the widow of a wealthy planter, Daniel Parke Custis, who died without a will in 1757; her share of the Custis estate brought another eighty-four slaves to Mount Vernon. In the sixteen years between his marriage and the beginning of the American Revolution, Washington acquired slightly more than 40 additional slaves through purchase. Most of the subsequent increase in the slave population at Mount Vernon occurred as a result of the large number of children born on the estate.”
(Mary V. Thompson, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
After the American Revolution, abolition of slavery gained popularity. In 1780, the state of Pennsylvania enacted the Gradual Abolition Act, granting slaves freedom in various situations. With the construction of the U.S. Capitol during George Washington’s presidency, Philadelphia became the temporary capital in 1790 and the Washingtons brought along some household slaves to that city. In 1791 when U.S. Attorney General Edmund Randolph lost some slaves due to the Gradual Abolition Act, he immediately informed Martha Washington and George Washington’s Chief Secretary Tobias Lear, warning of what could happen to the Washingtons’ slaves; Lear then wrote to George Washington for his directions:
“The Attorney General called upon Mrs Washington today, and informed her that three of his Negroes had given him notice that they should tomorrow take advantage of a law of this State, and claim their freedom — and that he had mentioned it to her from an idea that those who were of age in this family might follow the example, after a residence of six months should put it in their power. I have therefore communicated it to you that you might, if you thought best, give directions in the matter respecting the blacks in this family.”
(“Washington, the Enslaved, and the 1780 Law”, Edward Lawler, Jr., The President’s House in Philadelphia, ushistory.org)
On April 12, 1791, President Washington replied with his understanding and decision:
“The Attorney-General’s case and mine I conceive from a conversation I had with him respecting our Slaves, is some what different. He in order to qualify himself for practice in the Courts of Pennsylvania, was obliged to take the Oaths of Citizenship to that State; whilst my residence is incidental as an Officer of Government only, but whether among people who are in the practice of enticing slaves even where there is no colour of law for it, this distinction will avail, I know not, and therefore beg you will take the best advice you can on the subject, and in case it shall be found that any of my Slaves may, or any of them shall attempt their freedom at the expiration of six months, it is my wish and desire that you should send the whole, or such part of them as Mrs. Washington may not chuse [sic] to keep, home — for although I do not think they would be benefitted by the change, yet the idea of freedom might be too great a temptation for them to resist. At any rate it might, if they conceived they had a right to it, make them insolent in a State of Slavery. As all except Hercules and Paris are dower negroes, it behooves me to prevent the emancipation of them, otherwise I shall not only loose the use of them, but may have them to pay for. If upon taking good advice it is found expedient to send them back to Virginia, I wish to have it accomplished under the pretext that may deceive both them and the Public; — and none I think would so effectually do this as Mrs. Washington coming to Virginia next month (toward the middle or latter end of it, as she seemed to have a wish to do) if she can accomplish it by any convenient and agreeable means, with the assistance of the Stage Horses etc.”
(Edward Lawler, Jr., ushistory.org)
As Washington understood it, the Attorney General took the Oath of Citizenship of Pennsylvania in order to practice law in that state’s courts, and consequently lost some accompanying slaves to freedom, but as a temporary resident Washington himself was only subject to a 6-month residency rule, that his slaves could get freedom after 6 months. Thus, his instruction to his Chief Secretary was to transport the slaves out of the state prior to the 6-month deadline, with an excuse that would keep them and the public unaware of the reason: “I wish to have it accomplished under the pretext that may deceive both them and the Public”.
Washington also stated his views on holding slaves: for one, he did not think freedom would be good for them, but they might think otherwise: “for although I do not think they would be benefitted by the change, yet the idea of freedom might be too great a temptation for them to resist”; and for another, except Hercules and Paris whom he named, they were his wife’s “dower” slaves, their freedom could mean monetary penalty for him, and so he needed to prevent it: “As all except Hercules and Paris are dower negroes, it behooves me to prevent the emancipation of them, otherwise I shall not only loose the use of them, but may have them to pay for.”
That was the kind of situation George Washington was in, that even if he had granted freedom to his family slaves, it would have applied only to a minority of them, not to the dower slaves who had come with his wife in their marriage.
In practice, it probably would have been difficult for Washington to let go of his own slaves and use hired labor when his wife’s lifestyle relied on a full suite of slave servants.
Washington’s “dower negroes” dilemma became well known decades later in 1845 when a runaway slave maid of Martha Washington’s, Ona Maria Judge, achieved fame telling the story of her escape, and that she did not want to be a future slave of a granddaughter of Martha’s:
“There is now living in the borders of the town of Greenland, N.H., a runaway slave of Gen. Washington, at present supported by the County of Rockingham. Her name at the time of her elopement was ONA MARIA JUDGE. She is not able to give the year of her escape, but says that she came from Philadelphia just after the close of Washington’s second term of the Presidency, which must fix it somewhere in the [early?] part of the year 1797.
Being a waiting maid of Mrs. Washington, she was not exposed to any peculiar hardships. If asked why she did not remain in his service, she gives two reasons, first, that she wanted to be free; secondly that she understood that after the decease of her master and mistress, she was to become the property of a grand-daughter of theirs, by name of Custis, and that she was determined never to be her slave.
Being asked how she escaped, she replied substantially as follows, “Whilst they were packing up to go to Virginia, I was packing to go, I didn’t know where; for I knew that if I went back to Virginia, I should never get my liberty. I had friends among the colored people of Philadelphia, had my things carried there beforehand, and left Washington’s house while they were eating dinner.”
…
Washington made two attempts to recover her. First, he sent a man by the name of Bassett to persuade her to return; but she resisted all the argument he employed for this end. He told her they would set her free when she arrived at Mount Vernon, to which she replied, “I am free now and choose to remain so.”
Finding all attempts to seduce her to slavery again in this manner useless, Bassett was sent once more by Washington, with orders to bring her and her infant child by force. The messenger, being acquainted with Gov. [then Senator John] Langdon, then of Portsmouth, took up lodgings with him, and disclosed to him the object of his mission.
The good old Governor. (to his honor be it spoken), must have possessed something of the spirit of modern anti-slavery. He entertained Bassett very handsomely, and in the meantime sent word to Mrs. Staines, to leave town before twelve o’clock at night, which she did, retired to a place of concealment, and escaped the clutches of the oppressor.
Shortly after this, Washington died, and, said she, “they never troubled me any more after he was gone. …”
(“Washington’s Runaway Slave”, Rev. T. H. Adams, May 22, 1845, Two 1840s Articles on Oney Judge, ushistory.org)
So in 1797 as George Washington’s presidency ended in Philadelphia, Miss Oney Judge, a slave maid of Martha’s, parted ways with the Washingtons and ran away to New Hampshire as they were to return to Virginia.
George Washington’s public image of Christian devotion was also challenged by Mrs. Judge Staines:
“She says that she never received the least mental or moral instruction, of any kind, while she remained in Washington’s family. But, after she came to Portsmouth, she learned to read; and when Elias Smith first preached in Portsmouth, she professes to have been converted to Christianity.
… She says that the stories told of Washington’s piety and prayers, so far as she ever saw or heard while she was his slave, have no foundation. Card-playing and wine-drinking were the business at his parties, and he had more of such company Sundays than on any other day. …
…
This woman is yet a slave. If Washington could have got her and her child, they were constitutionally his; and if Mrs. Washington’s heirs were now to claim her, and take her before Judge Woodbury, and prove their title, he would be bound, upon his oath, to deliver her up to them. Again — Langdon was guilty of a moral violation of the Constitution, in giving this woman notice of the agent being after her. …
Mrs. Staines was given verbally, if not legally, by Mrs. Washington, to Eliza Custis, her grand-daughter.”
(“1846 interview with Ona Judge Staines”, Rev. Benjamin Chase, January 1, 1847, Two 1840s Articles on Oney Judge, ushistory.org)
The runaway slave’s first-person account of Sunday card-playing and wine-drinking parties directly contradicted George Washington’s religious character attested to by his step-granddaughter Nelly Custis-Lewis.
Nelly was a sister of Eliza Custis to whom their grandmother Martha had promised this slave.
(“Martha Parke Custis Peter”, Wendy Kail, The Papers of George Washington)
On the other hand, such a portrayal of George Washington as lacking religious devotion might explain his lack of religious preference for his slaves, which he once wrote about:
“I am informed that a Ship with Palatines is gone up to Baltimore, among whom are a number of Trademen. I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) and you would do me a favor by purchasing one of each, for me. I would not confine you to Palatines. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of an Sect, or they may be Athiests.”
(George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick edited, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, Volume 27, 1938, United States Government Printing Office)
In his will, George Washington stipulated freeing all of his own slaves, 123 of them, upon his wife’s death; but the dower slaves of Martha’s – Oney Judge was obviously one – by Virginia’s slavery law belonged to the Custis estate:
“Of the 318 slaves at Mount Vernon in 1799, 123 individuals were owned by George Washington and were stipulated in Washington’s will to be freed upon his wife’s death. …
Neither George nor Martha Washington could free these dower slaves by law. Upon her death the slaves would revert to the Custis estate and be divided among her grandchildren.”
(“Status of Slaves in Washington’s Will”, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
After Washington’s death, his wife had fear that his 123 slaves could revolt and kill her:
“There was a fear that these slaves could revolt and kill Martha in order to gain their freedom. Rumors circulated about a suspicious fire at Mount Vernon that may have been set by slaves.”
(“Ten Facts About Martha Washington”, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
U.S. President John Adams’s wife Abigail helped Martha Washington decide to free George Washington’s slaves:
“Abigail Adams, wife of President John Adams, visited Martha at Mount Vernon in 1800 and wrote “in the state in which they [the slaves] were left by the General, to be free at her death, she did not feel as tho her Life was safe in their Hands, many of whom would be told it was there interest to get rid of her—She therefore was advised to set them all free at the close of the year.”
(Helen Bryan, Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty, 2002, John Wiley & sons)
So there they were in 1801 when John Davis attended Rev. Weems’s service at Pohick Church, many among the reverent black half of the congregation were George Washington’s former slaves set free on January 1 by his widow Martha.
Despite her goodwill to alleviate her fear, Martha became ill by October and died on May 22, 1802.
George Washington’s friend and fellow U.S. founding father, George Mason IV of Gunston Hall, died in 1792 without in his will freeing any of his 300 or so slaves, despite his famously strong views against slavery:
“Possibly the second largest slave owner in Fairfax County (after George Washington), Mason’s views on slavery are revealed in his writings. He intensely disliked and disapproved of the institution and argued against it. He wrote:
[Slavery is a] slow Poison, which is daily contaminating the Minds & Morals of our People. Every Gentleman here is born a petty Tyrant…. And in such an infernal School are to be educated our future Legislators & Rulers.
… At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 he said:
Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. [Slaves] bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not [sic] be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. …
Although opposed to slavery, Mason remained a slave owner until the end of his life. His lengthy will, which named 36 slaves individually, manumitted none of them.”
(“George Mason’s Views on Slavery”, George Mason’s Gunston Hall)
Decades later in 1849 – after the Ona Maria Judge stories about Washington – George Mason’s grandson Gerard was killed by a slave:
“Woodbridge plantation was located on the Occoquan River, opposite the old town of Colchester, Virginia. It consisted of lands patented by George Mason III, the father of George Mason of Gunston Hall. …
In 1792 George Mason of Gunston Hall willed this land, along with the ferry, to his youngest son, Thomas. …
…
Unfortunately, Thomas’ political and agricultural careers were cut short when he died in 1800 at the early age of thirty. The exact cause of Thomas’ death is unknown. … The ferry house remained within the family because Gerard Mason, Thomas’ oldest child, was living there in 1849 when he was found slain there by his own slave.”
(“Woodbridge”, George Mason’s Gunston Hall)
So there was at least one known instance where a slave murdered his U.S. founding-father family master.
Dying young was not uncommon in the Mason family as reviewed before: all 3 of George Mason VI’s sons died young in the 19th century, and Gunston Hall was later sold outside the family.
Less than 2 months after Martha Washington’s death her grandson George Washington Parke Custis, George Washington’s adopted son and brother of Nelly and Eliza, donated one of George Washington’s bibles to Pohick Church, with a telling inscription referring to his concern that this church could cease to be:
“Presented to Truro Parish for the use of Pohick Church, July 11, 1802. With the request that should said church cease to be appropriated to Divine worship which God forbid, and for the honor of Christianity, it is hoped will never take place. In such case I desire that the vestry will preserve this Bible as a testimony of regard from the subscriber after a residence of 19 years in the Parish. – George Washington Parke Custis.”
(“The Truth about George Washington’s Presidential Inaugural Bible”, Catherine Millard, Summer 2012, Christian Heritage News)
Who would want to end such a proud legacy, the family church of George Washington and George Mason?
Demographic changes led to some declines. As previously cited of former Lorton Arts Foundation president Irma Clifton, the town of Colchester at the Occoquan River mouth, founded by the Mason family of Gunston Hall nearby, into the 19th century declined and was nearly wiped out by an 1815 fire. In this declining period George Mason VI was Gunston Hall’s owner, and following his 1834 death his sons lived only to their 20s, and the plantation was ravaged by the Civil War before being sold.
Pohick Church also suffered decline, neglect and Civil War ravages.
After an 1837 visit to a nearly abandoned Pohick Church – Virginia Theological Seminary students led sporadic services there and the Methodists used it on alternate Sundays – Virginia Episcopal Bishop William Meade conveyed his sense of shock at the 1838 church convention:
“My next visit was to Pohick Church, in the vicinity of Mt. Vernon, the seat of General Washington. It was still raining when I approached the house, and found no one there. The wide open doors invited me to enter, as they do invite, day and night through the year, not only the passing traveller, but every beast of the field and fowl of the air . . . How could I, while for at least an hour traversing those long aisles, ascending the lofty pulpit, entering the sacred chancel, forbear to ask, ‘And is this the House of God which was built by the Washingtons, the McCartys, the Lewises, the Fairfaxes?—the house in which they used to worship the God of our fathers according to the venerable forms of the Episcopal Church, and some of whose names are still to be seen on the doors of those now deserted pews? Is this also destined to moulder piecemeal away, or, when some signal is given, to become the prey of spoilers, and to be carried hither and thither and applied to every purpose under heaven?’ Surely patriotism, or reverence for the greatest of patriots, if not religion, might be effectually appealed to in behalf of this one temple of God.”
(“History of Pohick Church”, Pohick Church)
The Virginia Bishop’s call for “patriotism”, “if not religion”, to save this “House of God” “built by the Washingtons” and others, was answered by Rev. W. P. C. Johnson, who became Pohick Church’s rector and launched a national campaign for renovation donations, to which contributions were made by U.S. President Martin Van Buren, former President John Quincy Adams and other notable Americans. As previously cited, while there Rev. Johnson likely rented living space at the Gunston Hall mansion from George Mason VI’s widow Eleanor Ann Clifton Patton Mason.
After a few short years Johnson left and the church reverted to desolateness. Illustrator and historian Benson J. Lossing visited in December 1848 and recorded his impressions:
“at early twilight [I] reached the venerated Pohick or Powheek Church where Washington worshiped, and Weems, his first biographer, preached. … The twilight lingered long enough with sufficient intensity to allow me to make the annexed sketch from my wagon in the road . . . [the next morning I returned] to Pohick Church, on the road to Alexandria, where I understood a Methodist meeting was to be held that day . . . When they were all assembled, men and women, white and black, the whole congregation, including the writer, amounted to only twenty-one persons. What a contrast with former days, when some of the noblest of the Virginia aristocracy filled those now deserted and dilapidated pews, while Massey or Weems performed the solemn and impressive ritual of the Church of England!”
(“History of Pohick Church”, Pohick Church)
As Lossing noted, a December 1848 Methodist service at Pohick Church had no more than 20 local attendees.
This was close to the scenario George Washington’s step-grandson George Washington Parke Custis had feared, that Pohick Church would “cease to be appropriated to Divine worship which God forbid”.
Perhaps the small group of Methodists were determined to outlast the remaining sporadic Episcopal worshipers and revive Pohick Church as theirs. If so they didn’t succeed, and moved on to Pohick Church’s old site, once known as Occoquan Church as reviewed before, to build their new church:
“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, in honor of the Rev. John Lewis, who inspired the movement.
The Lewis Chapel attendance increased to such a point it became necessary to enlarge the building. This was done by adding ten feet to the rear end, and by taking out the gallery, which had been placed in the front of the church for use by the slaves.”
(“Cranford’s History”, Cranford United Methodist Church)
Apparently as late as 1857 the Methodists made a slave gallery for their new Lewis Chapel at Pohick Church’s old site. In contrast, the historical accounts of Pohick Church since the days of 1801 when Rev. Weems preached, as reviewed above, did not mention any separate balcony or gallery for slaves or blacks.
During this time of the 1840s and 1850s, the slavery abolition movement was growing strong in the northern U.S. as seen in the two quoted articles about Oney Judge, the Washington family’s runaway slave, both written by Christian clergymen, Rev. T. H. Adams and Rev. Benjamin Chase.
Soon the Civil War came in 1861, and Pohick Church was ransacked by Union soldiers from Michigan, who took things apart for their keep, fully aware that this had been George Washington’s church:
“The 2nd Michigan Volunteers, under the command of Brigadier General Samuel P. Heintzelman, conducted the first raid on November 12, 1861. One of those present, Lieutenant Charles B. Haydon, expressed his outrage over the devastation wrought upon the Church: “At 8 ½ A.M. we reached the church 12 miles out. Pohick Church is a brick building built in 1773. Gen. Washington contributed to building it & was a frequent attendant. It has a very ancient look & one would suppose that it might be sacred enough to be secure. I have long known that the Mich 2nd had no fear or reverence as a general thing for God or the places where he is worshiped but I had hoped that the memory of Gen. Washington might protect almost anything with which it was associated. I believe our soldiers would have torn the church down in 2 days. They were all over it in less than 10 minutes tearing off the ornaments, splitting the woodwork and pews, knocking the brick to pieces & everything else they could get at. They wanted pieces to carry away . . . A more absolute set of vandals than our men can not be found on the face of the earth. As true as I am living I believe they would steal Washington’s coffin if they could get to it.””
(“History of Pohick Church”, Pohick Church)
“Patriotism” as Virginia Bishop William Meade had appealed to did not matter to Michigan volunteer soldiers in the Union army: “they would steal Washington’s coffin if they could get to it”.
Such mentalities haven’t changed much in Michigan today, have they, as shown in the pride of preserving and featuring former police jail cells in converted arts centers, in Detroit and in Hamtramck “nestled inside loving arms of Detroit” as previously reviewed?
On the other hand, during the Civil War some Americans likely resented the Washington family, many of whom joined the Southern Confederacy to help preserve slavery:
“The Washington family paid dearly during the war. At least 12 served the Confederacy; eight died in battle, by hanging or of disease. Their estates became battlegrounds; their property was seized; and they were left impoverished.”
(“The Confederate Washingtons”, James H. Johnston, February 15, 2014, The Opinion Pages, The New York Times)
So Pohick Church wasn’t alone in the fate of ravage.
The most famous Washington who joined the Confederacy, and died in war, was John Augustine Washington III, the Mount Vernon plantation’s last family owner, who expressed outrage about such Union soldier behavior, and was soon killed in action – even before Michigan soldiers’ raid on Pohick Church:
“Abraham Lincoln must have been pained by the number of Washingtons on the other side during the Civil War. He idolized George Washington. One of the first books he read as a boy was Parson Weems’s apocryphal biography of the first president, and it made a lasting impression. …
Lincoln might find solace in the fact that none of the Confederate Washingtons were direct descendants of the first president, who didn’t have children But his brothers and half brothers did. They were Virginia aristocracy, marrying the likes of the Lees. Most prominent in Lincoln’s day was the last owner of Mount Vernon, John Augustine Washington III, the great-grandson of George’s brother John. When war came, he walked away from the Union.
John Augustine was not a military man, but he entered the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp to (and tent mate of) Robert E. Lee, a distant cousin. The pious, gentlemanly Washington quickly turned partisan, explaining in a letter from July 1861: “In fact the Yankees are for the most part a set of plundering fellows, who will steal and bully when they can and do as little fighting as possible.” Two months later, he was shot and killed by such fellows at the Battle of Cheat Mountain, Va. In a condolence letter to Washington’s family, Lee told of the circumstances:
He accompanied my son, Fitshugh, on a reconnoitering expedition and I fear was carried too far by his zeal for the cause of the South which he had so much at heart. Before they were aware they were fired upon by a concealed party. … He was the only person struck and fell dead from his horse.
“
(James H. Johnston, February 15, 2014, The New York Times)
Fortunately Mt. Vernon and Washington’s tomb, a short distance east of Pohick Church, wasn’t ransacked, thanks to a women’s group, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union.
The women had raised money nationally to take over George Washington’s mansion with 200 acres:
“In 1853, Louisa Bird Cunningham was traveling on the Potomac River and passed by Mount Vernon in the moonlight. Struck by its appearance, and fearing that it would soon be lost to the nation for lack of upkeep, Cunningham wrote a letter to her daughter Ann Pamela Cunningham. In the letter, Cunningham commented that if the men of the United States would not save the home of its greatest citizen, perhaps it should be the responsibility of the women.
These words galvanized her daughter into action. Initially writing under the nom de plume, “A Southern Matron,” Ann Pamela Cunningham challenged first the women of the South, and later the women of the entire country to save the home of George Washington. … Cunningham and the organization she had founded, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, raised $200,000 to purchase the mansion and two hundred acres.”
(“Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association”, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
But it took years before John Augustine Washington III, who wanted the U.S. government or the Virginia government to buy it for $200,000, sold Mt. Vernon to the women; they took possession on George Washington’s birthday a year before the Civil War:
“… But he believed no less piously than Cunningham that the estate should be preserved as a fitting, official memorial to his illustrious ancestor; and to him, that meant that the government—if not of the United States, then of Virginia—should buy it for $200,000 …
Five years later, matters looked very different. An undeterred Cunningham had continued to raise money and had enlisted a powerful ally: the intense, charismatic Edward Everett, a former congressman, Massachusetts governor, Harvard president, ambassador to England, and—briefly— secretary of state and U.S. senator. … So when Cunningham wrote to John Augustine Washington in March 1858 to tell him that the Virginia legislature, like the U.S. Congress, had just voted down a bill to buy Mount Vernon, and to renew her original offer, she was also able to report that she already had in hand more than enough to make a sizable down payment on the $200,000.
In that case, John Augustine wrote back, “believing that after the two highest powers in our country, the Women of the land will probably be the safest as they will be the purest guardians of a national shrine,” he would be pleased to accept Cunningham’s offer… On George Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1860, with the full $200,000 paid, John Augustine Washington moved out of Mount Vernon, and Ann Pamela Cunningham moved into a drafty, leaky house that contained nothing but the key to the Bastille that Lafayette had sent his beloved mentor… and the opulent London-made harpsichord that President Washington had bought for his granddaughter, Nelly Custis, in 1793. Martha Washington’s great-granddaughter, Mrs. Robert E. Lee, had sent the instrument back to Mount Vernon in 1859, when she heard that the MVLA intended to make the house a shrine…”
(“How Private Philanthropy Saved the Founders’ Homes”, Myron Magnet, Autumn 2014,City Journal)
It was a pricey $200,000 for a mansion and 200 acres. As previously cited, George Mason’s Gunston Hall and 1,000 acres sold for only $15,000 in 1866, a year after the Civil War.
The Mount Vernon ladies’ Association of the Union protected Mt. Vernon from warfare by having it declared a neutral territory:
“With the conflict making travel difficult for Cunningham, the estate was managed by two staff members during the Civil War; a Northerner and a Southerner. Cunningham’s secretary, Sarah C. Tracy and Upton H. Herbert, Mount Vernon’s first Resident Superintendent, managed the estate through the war years. There were also free African-American employees working at the estate, including Emily the cook, Priscilla the chambermaid, Frances, a maid, and George, the coachman and general assistant.
Cunningham believed that it was imperative that no military outposts were placed within the borders of the estate in order to physically protect the property. After a visit from Tracy, on July 31, 1861 General Winfield Scott issued Order Number 13, declaring the estate’s status as non-partisan. A large proportion of the visitors during the war were still soldiers, though without military aims. Soldiers who visited the estate were requested to be neither armed nor dressed in military uniform. Such actions ensured that Mount Vernon remained neutral, respected grounds.”
(“The Civil War Years”, George Washington’s Mount Vernon)
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, his family and his cabinet circle were visitors to Mt. Vernon during the Civil War, but Lincoln did not actually set foot on it – staying on a Union navy boat due to the fragility of the ground’s neutrality:
“When Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, some of his wife’s relatives stayed at the White House during the festivities. … On March 20 one of Mary’s cousins wrote home, “We have had a boat at our disposal for several days to pay a visit to Mount Vernon, but so many things have interfered to keep us home.”
The following week while President Lincoln remained in Washington, Mary took her guests to the estate on the steamer Thomas Collyer. …
On December 12, 1861, John Dahlgren of the Washington Navy Yard accompanied some Cabinet members and guests to Mount Vernon. He wrote in his diary, “As the position of our forces here was by no means assured, I considered it very hazardous for such important functionaries to go ashore. However, the whole party went, except him of War, who quietly remained in the steamboat in mid-river.”
In February 1862 Julia Taft, a friend of the Lincoln family, went on a picnic to Mount Vernon with ladies from the newly commissioned Fort Foote across the Potomac River. Their enjoyable day was shortened by the appearance of Confederate troops … The two orderlies who had stayed behind to bring the lunch baskets down to the landing were captured and spent two years in Libby prison.”
Following the February 20, 1862 death of 11-year-old Willie Lincoln, some of Mary Lincoln’s relatives again were in town. On Wednesday, April 2, Dahlgren reported going to Mount Vernon “with the President, some members of his family, and others. I advised the President not to land, and remained in the boat with him.””
(“Mount Vernon”, Abraham Lincoln Online)
The extended Washington family members who joined the Confederacy included the Washingtons’ Alexander family cousins:
“The Washingtons’ first cousins, a branch of the Alexander family, also lived at Claymont and joined the Confederate Army. Thomas Blackburn Alexander died of wounds in a hospital in Staunton, Va.; a second brother, William Fontaine Alexander, served the Confederate Army as a physician.
Claymont, a mansion as big as a modern hotel, was a breeding ground for rebellion. James Washington of Claymont rode with his older brothers Bushrod and George in the 12th Virginia Cavalry and later joined Confederate Col. John Mosby’s Rangers… James and his cousin Herbert Lee Alexander… were captured trying to blow up a railroad bridge. Imprisoned at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, James died of typhoid fever in the waning days of the war. Alexander survived the war, only to die of tuberculosis a year later.”
(James H. Johnston, February 15, 2014, The New York Times)
These Washington family cousins were descendants of Captain John Alexander, an early white settler in Virginia along with ancestors of George Mason and others.
(“John Alexander, Founder of Family in Virginia”, Sigismunda Mary Frances Chapman, A History of Chapman and Alexander Families, Virginia Book Company; and, “Claymont Court”, Washington Heritage Trail).
George Washington’s beloved town of Alexandria was named after this Alexander family, who owned the land:
“John Alexander, 1605 – 1677, emigrated from Scotland to the colony of Virginia around 1653. Alexander became a surveyor, justice of the peace, sheriff and captain of the Stafford County militia. … he is perhaps known best for his purchase of a large land parcel along the Potomac River, part of which, in 1749, became the town of Alexandria.
Surprisingly, the Alexanders were not the moving force in establishing the town of Alexandria. Rather, a group of northern Virginia entrepreneurs and members of the Ohio Company, including Lawrence Washington, George William Fairfax, William Fairfax, John Carlyle, Hugh West, Augustine Washington, Nathaniel Chapman, and others, petitioned the colonial government for establishing a town on the Potomac …
At that time John Alexander’s grandsons Robert and Philip owned the 60 acres of land that became the town of Alexandria. The Alexanders rented out their acreage to tenant farmers. They were not enthusiastic about having their land become a town and preferred to continue to receive income from their tenants. It is said that to “sweeten the transaction,” the Alexanders were told that the new town would be named Alexandria.”
(“John Alexander, Patriot”, John Alexander Chapter, National Society Daughters of American Revolution)
When a family had a great name – like Alexander the Great, founder of Egypt’s historic port of Alexandria – a city was named for them even when they did not want it.
Along with the women’s group Daughters of the American Revolution, the MVLA also contributed to the 1890-1917 restoration of Pohick Church; then on May 29, 1921, U.S. President Warren Harding attended the dedication of a memorial plaque at the Pohick Church cemetery honoring 6 local soldiers killed in World War I.
(“History of Pohick Church”, Pohick Church)
Ironically, the Pohick cemetery is also the final resting place of historic dignitaries whose remains were uprooted elsewhere, including:
“Peter Wagener (†1798) — Truro Parish vestryman and officer in the Revolutionary War; originally buried at Stisted plantation, near the now defunct town of Colchester, with other Wagener family and household members.
Hugh West (†1754) — Truro Parish vestryman and founder of Alexandria; originally buried at Cameron with other West family and household members.”
(“The Pohick Church Cemetery”, Pohick Church)
Hugh West isn’t even the the most famous of Alexandria re-buried at Pohick cemetery. A year after Harding’s visit, in 1922 the Alexander family’s remains were moved from their Preston plantation to the Pohick cemetery:
“Alexander Family — The remains of members of the Alexander family, for which the city of Alexandria is named, were moved to the Pohick cemetery in 1922 from Preston Plantation.”
(“The Pohick Church Cemetery”, Pohick Church)
The Preston plantation cemetery land became a rail yard.
(“The Archaeological Investigation of the Former Preston Plantation and Alexandria Canal at Potomac Yard. Alexandria, Virginia”, Robert M. Adams, June 1996, Alexandria Archaeology Museum, City of Alexandria)
Another year later in 1923, President Warren Harding suddenly died in San Francisco – the 6th U.S. president and the 3rd from Ohio to die during the presidency.
(“President Harding Dies Suddenly; Stroke of Apoplexy at 7:30 P.M.; Calvin Coolidge Is President”, August 2, 1923, The New York Times)
The year Harding visited Pohick Church, electricity came to the town of Occoquan across the Occoquan River, site of the historic “Occoquan works” where the automatic mill, possibly America’s first, had inspired George Washington to build one at Mt. Vernon as previously reviewed. Then in 1924 a electrical mishap caused a fire and destroyed the mill – at the town that had given Abraham Lincoln all of the 55 votes he got in Prince William County in the historic 1860 presidential election.
(Earnie Porta, Occoquan, 2010, Arcadia Publishing)
Under the care of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, George Washington’s Gristmill, among the first handful automated ones in the U.S., continues to run for visitors to see.
Buried at Pohick Church cemetery was also Indian chief “Long Tom”, as the legend goes:
“ALEXANDRIA, Va. Susannah Alexander awoke, grabbed a gun and killed a man pursuing her husband, John, around the room with a hatchet. Then the Alexanders … buried him on a hillside.
The victim was Long Tom, Orinoco Indian chief. John Alexander was a founder of this early American city—and wouldn’t have been except for Susannah’s sudden awakening.
Mention was made of the historical incident at ceremonies in the cemetery of old Pohick Church where John and Susannah—as well as Long Tom—lie buried.”
(“Indian Scare Story”, January 12, 1956, The Nevada Daily Mail)
How true was this “Long Tom” tale, now that we know the Alexander family weren’t founders of Alexandria but for their land?
Pohick Church’s own cemetery account has a “Long Tom” tombstone photo, and states he was “shot and killed by Susanna Alexander either in self-defense or to save the life of her husband, John”, “grandson of Capt. John Alexander, who originally seated Preston before 1677”.
(“The Pohick Church Cemetery”, Pohick Church)
A Captain John Alexander family record lists only one couple of John and Susanna (or Susannah) Alexander in the family tree: John Alexander, 1711-1764, Capt. Alexander’s great-grandson, wife Susanna Pearson, 1717-1788, daughter of Simon Pearson, “proprietor of Pearson’s Island, Alexandria, Va”.
(Sigismunda Mary Frances Chapman, Virginia Book Company)
Was this the one? Quite possibly, an online tombstone photo shows the name of “Susanna Pearson Alexander”.
(“Susanna (Pearson) Alexander. Cemetery: Pohick Churchyard, Lorton, Virginia, United States”, BillionGraves)
Poor Indian chief Long Tom lost to Ms. Susanna Pearson, but they all rest together at the Pohick Church cemetery now – since 1922, after the 1910 opening of the D.C. Correctional Complex that made Lorton well known.
Finally in 2001 those who had “committed ugly actions” – as previously cited – left Lorton, and in 2008 a new era began when the Workhouse Arts Center, in the old prison aspiring to be a nationally prominent arts center someday, held its grand opening:
“The opening celebration, which runs through Sept. 27, will present visitors with a sampling of the center’s offerings, including free workshops, live music and children’s theater performances of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.””
(“In Lorton, a Prison Success Story”, Amy Orndorff, September 19, 2008, The Washington Post)
Wow, children in today’s Virginia have been indoctrinated with teachings about the Alexander family’s misfortunes!
Not really.
“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, is a 1972 children’s novel about a day’s mishaps for school boy Alexander and his family, written by author Judith Viorst and turned into a theater play staged by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. and nationally, and is now also a Disney movie.
(“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, The Kennedy Center; and, “Disney, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”, Disney Movies)
Oh well, still a “very bad day” for an arts center’s grand opening.
(To be continued in Part 5)
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