Transcription
A tour of pre-revolutionary homes, featuring three currently under restoration, will be held Sunday, October 6, from 1p.m. to 5p.m. under the sponsorship of the Bel Air Women's Club.
Hostesses, wearing old-fashioned apron dresses, will greet the visitors at the Weems Botts house and Stage Coach Inn, Dumfries; Rippon Lodge and Bel Air Plantation, Woodbridge; Fairfax Arms and Pohick Church; and the Mill House and Rockledge, Occoquan. Hostesses will be members of the area women's clubs, Georgetown Village Women's Club, Prince William Junior Women's Club , Women's Club of Springfield, Woodbridge Women's Club, Womens Club of Manassas, the Manassas Junior Women's Club and members of the sponsoring club.
Garden clubs will have arrangements on display at the homes. The clubs represented will be Lake Ridge Garden Club, Trowel Garden Club, Old Dominion Garden Club, Woodmar Garden Club and the Hill and Dale Garden Club.
Tickets are $5 and may be purchased by sending a check to Mrs. Carol Cohen, 4490 Dale Blvd., Woodbridge, 22193. Further information may be had by calling Mrs. Cohen at 670-7606 or Mrs. Linda Snyder at 670-5717. The ticket is an attractive booklet with sketches of the homes on the tour and a description of each. Proceeds from the tour will go to the restoration of the Weems-Botts house.
Among the homes open in the old Prince William Historic Tour, will be one open to the public very seldom, Fairfax Arms.
Fairfax Arms, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert V.H. Duncan, is in Colchester and was formerly called Old Colchester Inn as it is a former ordinary.
John Davis, an English tutor, during his travels of the United States in 1798 wrote "Every luxury that money could purchase was obtained at the first summons... the richest viands covered the table and where the ice cools the Madeira that has thrice been across the ocean... carpets of delicate texture covered the floors and glasses were suspended from the walls in which Goliath might survey himself."
Tour visitors will be able to see restoration in progress at Stage Coach Inn, now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Pete Costello, and built around 1765. Refreshments will be served in the main hall of the mansion, which was formerly called Williams Ordinary and later Love's Tavern.
Located in Dumfries, the home is of unusual design. It is the only known building still standing in Virginia with a front wall done completely in header bond brick, a technique in which the end of the brick rather than the side is exposed. It has a low hip roof with four end chimneys and is trimmed in Aquia Stone. James Wren is credited with the design of the house. Wren also designed Pohick Church.
Notables tayed at the inn and undoubtedly banqueted and danced at parties in the spacious dining room. Lafayette is believed to have housed some troops there when he marched through Dumfries with his army in 1781.
Restoration will be seen in the process at the Weems home, reported to be the oldest frame house in Dumfries, and recently purchased by Historic Dumfries, Inc. Although the construction date has not been determind, Parson Weems, well known biographer of George Washington, bought the house in 1798 from the trustees of Dumfries for 35 pounds in Virginia currency.
Weems apparently used the house as a bookstore. The property was sold to Benjamine Botts, a noted local attorney in 1802, who gained national prominence during the Aaron Burr trail. Upon his death, it passed to John Minor Botts and from 1969 until recently was the residence of the Merchant family. Under Historic Dumfries, the house will become a museum and will contain artifacts and papers from the area.
The construction foreman will be on hand to answer questions from visitors when Rockledge, at Occoquan, is opened. Currently being restored by Mr. and Mrs. Don Sonner, Rockledge, which sits on a rock cliff overlooking the Occoquan, was built in 1758 by John Ballendine under architectural supervision of William Buckland, architect of Gunston Hall. Ballendine was an early industrialist and founder of manufacturing in Occoquan where at one time he was operating a sawmill, iron forge, and bakery.
Bel Air Plantation is owned by Dr. and Mrs. William S. Flory. The two and a half story country home of 14 rooms was built in the traditional style on the central-hall plan. It was built about 1740 by Charles Ewell. It was here that Parson Weems lived with his family and where he is buried in the family cemetery. It was unoccupied for about 18 years until the Florys purchased it in 1948 and began the long restortation. On display will be items found by students recently at an archaeological dig there.
Rippon Lodge, owned by Admiral Richard Blackburn Black (Ret.), fifth great-grandson of the home's builder, Richard Blackburn, and Mrs. Black. At Rippon, a man in colonial dress will greet the guests.
Named for the cathedral town in England from where the builder came, Rippon Lodge, was constructed about 1725. Blackburn was also architect and master builder of Mount Vernon. The date is, scratched into one of its chimneys.
Two daughters of Rippon Lodge became mistresses of Mount Vernon. Julia Anne Blackburn married Justice Bushrod Washington and Jane Charlotte Blackburn married John Augustine Washington.
The Mill House in Occoquan, which operated from 1759 to 1924, is a small cottage built before the end of the 18th century; and Pohick Church, built after construction plans drawn up by George Washington in 1769. George Mason took over the job of "undertaker" -the 18th century term for contractor, when the contractor Daniel French died. Services were first held in the new church building in 1774. The walls are original but the interior was recreated to replace that destroyed during the Civil War.Language
EnglishTranslator
Rachel Hughes