Transcription
- DUMFRIES BI-CENTENNIAL -
1749
The Manassas Messenger
"There stands Jackson like a stone wall!"
1949
THE HOME PAPER
Of Manassas, Centreville, Clifton, Haymarket, Nokesville, Triangle, Dumfries, Quantico, Woodbridge, Occoquan and All of Prince William County
TUESDAY AND FRIDAY
Vol. 5 No.25
Entered at the Post Office at
Manassas Va., [28?] second class matter
MANASSAS, VIRGINIA TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1949
Subscription Rates: In Prince William and Fairfax
Counties: $2 a Year; Elsewhere, $2.50 a Year.
3c A COPY
Dumfries marks 200th Anniversary
Dumfries, once the largest port in American, and Prince William
County's first incorporated town, celebrates its' bi-centennial
this week.
Making the Bi-centennial celebration will be a large Prince
William County Chamber of Commerce banquet at the Odd Fellow's
Hall in Dumfries, open to all.
Dumfries' Bi-centennial comes at a time when the town,
consisting chiefly of tourist homes, seems again on its way to
becoming an important , industrial site.
Nearby is the multi-million dollar Virginia Electric And
Power Company power-station which provides power to a large
area of Northern Virginia and at the same time is operated by
a large continguent of employees.
These employees will soon be housed in a newly-developed
section of Dumfries, "Rose Hill," which includes from twenty to
thirty large new homes; Upon its completion, the population of
the town is expected to be doubled.
The story of Dumfries presents
a interesting saga of
Prince William County and Virginia
itself.
John Graham, a native of Perthshire,
came to Virginia in 1740
from the ancient burg of Dumphries
the shire town of Dumphrieshire,
which stands on an
estuary on the Solway Firth
some eighty miles south of
Glasglow.
Soon after his arrival, in 1741,
Graham obtained land grants
along Quantico Creek which was
to be the site of the first town
in old Prince William. For several
years the Scotch merchants
continued to locate along this
creek and, in May, 1749, secured
the passage of an act providing
the erection of a town in the
county of Prince William to be
named Dumfries in honor of the
Scotch town of the same name.
The new town grew fast from
the start. It was established
at the moment when Virginia
merchants in Glasglow began
to realize the possibilities
of the area, of which new Dumfries
was a center. It was located
on a creek running into
the Potomac, and at the head
of tidewater. In its early and
prosperous days ocean-going
vessels from Bremen and
Calcutta, came and went in its
harbor.
It had a regular traffic with
European ports and many families
of wealth and distinction
lived in the town. In 1749 the
trade had greatly exceeded that
of Alexandria, which was founded
at the same time as Dumfries.
Dumfries, however, contained
within itself the warm decay.
A specialty town, it never
looked beyond the tobacco trade
and when the Scottish merchants
at home were diverted
by the American Revolution
from that trade to a commerce
in West Indies sugar, most of
those who had been their factors
at Dumfries abandoned the
town. There was no one with the
imagination or driving power to
make the adjustment which Alexandria
had already made from
tobacco to flour.
Quantico Creek had been silting
up the approach to the
wharves at Dumfires. After the
Revolution whatever trade was
left could no longer reach the
wharves; there seemed no system
of dredging effective enough
to prevent the evil.
A vain effort was then made
by Bertrain Weell and a few
other Virginians who owned
property in that vicinity, to revive
the port by establishing in 1787,
a new port at the mouth
of the creek. In 1793 one of the
two public warehouses was discontinued,
and hundreds of people
moved away. Many of the
large brick buildings were torn
down and carted off to be built
elsewhere.
As Bishop Meade said of Dumfries
in his day -
"Once the mart, the scene
of gayety and fashion, the
abode of wealthy merchants,
all is now in ruins. The
pines have covered the place
where the church once stood
- desolation reigns around."
After the decay of Dumfries
(Continued on Page 10)
CELEBRATION LEADERS
TOWNS IN OLD
PRINCE WILLIAM
Below is a list of the towns
with incorporation dates, which
were included in old Prince
William County, from 1749
through 1840. Of these, some
have disappeared utterly from
the modern map; while most
of the others perpetuate the
traditions of the past only as
rural community centers, villages
rather than towns.
Dumfries - 1749
Alexandria - 1749
Colchester - 1753
Leesburg - 1758
Philee - 1772
Prince William County
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
To the citizens of Dumfries:
The entire county of Prince William joins with
you in welcoming and celebrating the two-hundreth
anniversary of th echartering of your community.
That long-ago Dumfires was an established
township, providing necessary services to this entire
area. You may well be proud of your place in
American History.
This is a time to dedicate yourselves to a recapture
of those days when Dumfries was one of the
first ports and trading centers of Virginia.
This is the time to plan the rebuilding of your
community, and its extension in service to the state.
To ths purpose, I pledge the active aid and support
of the Prince William Chamber of Commerce.
E. D. Gothwaite,
President
Maidstone - 1772
Carolandville - 1772
Newport - 1787
Middleburg - 1787
Carrborough - 1788
Matildaville - 1790
Centreville - 1792
Salem - 1796
Buckland - 1798
Fayettesville - 1798
South Haven - 1798
Turberville - 1798
Hay Market - 1799
Waterford - 1801
Hillsborough - 1802
Occoquan - 1804
Providence - 1805
Warrenton - 1810
Aldie - 1810
Paris - 1810
Union - 1813
Upperville - 1819
Brentsville - 1822
New Baltimore -1822
Snickersville - 1824
Dranesville - 1840Transcriber
Adam KitchenLanguage
English