On Mother’s Day, my son asked me where I’d like to go.
When I told him about a local Napoleon site I wanted to check out, he had an additional idea to start the afternoon after our picnic lunch, en route to the Napoleon site.
After analyzing the map assessing our best approach to this unique site, we drove the back roads of our former home in Bristow.
Missing the hidden turn to the Napoleonic site, we ended up on Rt 29/Lee Highway, across from Buckland Historic District.
BUCKLAND HISTORIC DISTRICT
Since I’ve driven down this road numerous times and wondered about the historical marker near the charming old stone houses along Broad Run, we indulged our curiosity by driving over.
We even wondered if we’d find hints to better direct us to the Napoleon behind us.
Respectfully we quietly walked among the historical markers spread about the old houses that were privately owned.
COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG IN THE MAKING
Reading the signs only made me more curious, so later, I researched online.
Turns out this quiet plot of land lost to time is a Colonial Williamsburg in the making!
All those years I lived further down Broad Run looking for 18th century history, I had no idea.
17TH CENTURY BROAD RUN TRACT
From different resources it seems this Broad Run tract was originally owned by Lord Fairfax, who eventually conveyed it to the sons of the infamous Robert ‘King’ Carter, who conveyed the land to William Taliaffero.
OLD CAROLINA ROAD
After Samuel Love purchased in 1774 from William Taliaffero the 1250 acres of the Broad Run Tract, which included the mill and mill dam, he asked the General Assembly to re-route the Old Carolina road directly to these buildings, which changed the course of history.
Running from Frederick, Maryland to North Carolina, the Old Carolina Road was a popular trade route, which was fascinating for me to learn, since I had enjoyed driving that back road a lot when I lived in the area.
Due to the improved commerce from the many travelers on Old Carolina Road, Love’s sons, after they returned home from the American Revolution, built a distillery, tannery, another mill, and stores.
BUCKLAND ESTABLISHED
When that attracted more merchants and tradesmen to the area, the area gained a: wheelwright, cooper, apothecary, boot/shoe manufacturer, saddler, woolen factory, two taverns, and a church.
By 1797, John Love (Samuel’s son) organized 48 lots on both sides of Broad Run, with street names like Washington, Jefferson, Lafayette, and Franklin.
Citizens petition the Virginia General Assembly (December 7, 1797) that “a law may be enacted for the purpose of establishing a town on the lands of John Love in Prince William County on Broad Run, a branch of the Occoquan River, near said Love’s mill agreeable to the plan of a town herewith presented.” “Few inland situations will be found better. …the ground is high and dry, the situation healthy and agreeable. ….within town …are two excellent springs of water. …many quarries of red and white free stone. …already built upwards of 20 good houses which are occupied by tradesmen and merchants. Considerable manufactories of grain have been erected. …the necessary steps are now taking for that purpose (opening roads). …Buckland lies convenient to one of the best gaps in the lower ridge of mountains, through which the roads of a very extensive part of the country between the lower and Blue Ridge of mountains must necessarily pass to go either to Dumfries or Alexandria. The road in the straightest direction from Ashby’s Gap to Dumfries will pass through Buckland. …The road called the Carolina Road, leading from Nowland’s Ferry on Potomac River to Norman’s Ford, Rappahannock, is established to pass through Buckland, and is found nearer and better than the former one.” Petition recommended Buckland “as a proper place for establishing a town… [General Assembly Legislative Petitions, 12.7.1797. Accession #36121. Microfilm 164, Box 210, Folder 52, Library of Virginia]
COMMUNICATING WITH THE GREAT ONES
Throughout these years and beyond, John Love communicated with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, and Andrew Jackson regarding agriculture and politics.
HORSE COUNTRY
In the 1780s, John and Samuel Love imported Arabian and European horses to raise fine horses in Virginia.
{I can personally testify that this tradition continues in the backyard of my former Virginia house where I used to purposely plan my driving through the gorgeous horse country up Vint Hill Road to the Buckland area.)
Customers included General George Washington, in 1789 for personal use, and President John Adam’s Secretary of War, James McHenry, who purchased several horses for the US Army in 1799.
FAUQUIER ALEXANDRIA TURNPIKE
Upon establishment of the Fauquier and Alexandria Turnpike by the General Assembly in 1808, which would run past the town, management of the project was taken on by the Virginia Board of Public Works, construction began in Alexandria between 1812 and 1818.
NAPOLEONIC ENGINEER PUTS BUCKLAND ON THE MAP
By 1824, the newly hired principal engineer for the Virginia Board of Public Works, Claudius Crozet, began work on the turnpike between Buckland and Warrenton in Fauquier County.
After serving in as an engineer for Napoleon in his army, Crozet taught engineering at West Point.
Newly hired by the Virginia Board of Public Works, Crozet brought cutting edge technology from Europe, making Buckland a distinctive landmark.
When the Buckland trustees agreed with Crozet to run the turnpike through the town, instead of on the Old Carolina Road on the north end of town nearer the mill, four houses were torn down to create the route.
(below photo of modern bridge, where the old bridge for the turnpike once stood)
First of its kind in Virginia was the Buckland section of road using the highly acclaimed macadam technology, invented by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam.
In the macadam technique, roads were raised above the surrounding area, then layered with rocks and gravel, which enabled drainage, a huge improvement to the customary dirt roads commonly found in America. (rendering of the building process at this link)
While building the stone bridge abutments on Broad Run, Crozet implemented French techniques, which were first of its kind in America.
{Wow! That’s what we came to see! I didn’t realize there was a direct Buckland connection. After leaving the old village of Buckland, we figured out how to access the abutments. Archaeology is pending to discover more about the French technique behind their design.}
LAFAYETTE VISITS
In 1825, Lafayette visited the Buckland Tavern while on his Grand Tour of America.
ACCOLADES
While a travel writer by the name of Mrs. Anne Royall traveled through I 1830, she jotted down notes upon what she saw.
Notorious for being overly critical, she wrote in her book, Mrs. Royall’s Southern Tour:
…a romantic, lively, business-doing village, situated on a rapid, rolling stream… several manufactories are propelled by this stream which adds much to the scenery. Buckland owns the largest distillery I have seen in my travels. The buildings, vats and vessels are quite a show. There is also flour manufactory here on a very extensive scale-this stream is a fund of wealth to the citizens… encompassed with rising grounds and rocks, the roaring of the water-falls, and the town stretching up and scattering from the stream to the top of the hills, was truly picturesque…a real Yankee town for business.
PONY EXPRESS AND STAGECOACH
Reading her positive review, the town breathed a sigh of relief, as they watched their town expand with the Pony Express, a stagecoach line, and the needful Stagecoach Inn.
LEE FAMILY ARRIVES
Since John Love saw a future in land speculation in Kentucky and Tennessee in 1840 with Andrew Jackson, he sold Buckland to George Washington’s first cousin, Temple Mason Washington, who later sold the land in 1853 to the son of Congressman Richard Bland Lee (nephew of Lighthouse Harry Lee and therefore cousin of Robert E. Lee) of Sully Plantation (near Dulles, today located between the lanes of Rt 29), Richard Bland Lee II.
After becoming a major in the US Army, he switched to the Confederacy, keeping the same rank.
CIVIL WAR BATTLES
While the combating armies frequently traveled the turnpike, August 1862 saw the opening shots of the Second Battle of Manassas began at Crozet’s stone bridge.
On October 19, 1863, the Battle of Buckland Mills, also called Custer’s First Stand, ensued at Crozet’s bridge, resulting in the Confederate’s final southern victory.
PAINTINGS OF LATE 19TH CENTURY BUCKLAND
While Richard Bland Lee II and his descendants lived in Buckland, an artistic cousin, John Singer Sargent, painted scenes of the town in water-color and oil paint.
HORSE RACING
After the Lee’s sold their home in 1935 for renovations, the land was sold again to Thomas Mellon Evans of Wall Street, who developed a Kentucky style state of the art thoroughbred horse farm.
One of his championship horses, Pleasant Colony, won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in 1981, and was buried in Buckland after he died in 2002.
A TOWN LOST TO TIME
Despite the encroachment of the modern world, this little village has maintained its 18th century historic country charm.
RESIDENT PROCLAMATION
Like a time capsule, many of the eighteenth century stone foundations remain in place…In preserving this site we have perhaps the best chance at demonstrating everyday life in old Virginia… –David William Blake
{David William Blake wrote this amazing historical account from which I learned most of this information.)
Learn more about David William Blake here, a resident who became especially passionate about his home after learning its history, so he formed the Buckland Preservation Society.
APVA PROCLAMATION
In my opinion, properly protected and researched, Buckland has the unique potential to teach generations to come much about American values, especially the role of free enterprise, in the development and growth of the United States during its founding years between the American Revolution and the Civil War Era. Too often, as at Jamestown, no architectural landscape and few documents survive to help tell significant pieces of the archaeological part of that story as it does at Buckland. The preservation and research of Buckland can stand as a prime example of how Americana progress and significantly unique historic places can co-exist as well. –William M. Kelso, Ph.D APV A Director of Archaeology Jamestown Rediscovery Preservation Virginia 12/17/03
LANDSCAPE HISTORIAN PROCLAMATION
Nestled within a gentle crook of the placid Broad Run, the historic town of Buckland is especially noteworthy in that it largely retains its original topographical relationships to the surrounding landscape. Many modern urban centers began just as Buckland did, as a modest settlement on the banks “of a river or stream, but long ago lost all Semblance of their initial physical character…Located between two, tobacco “rolling roads” providing access to the principal upper Potomac port of Dumfries, and along a primary tributary of the Occoquan terminating at the, other notable colonial port of Colchester, Buckland’s setting was uniquely well positioned to develop as Prince William County’s earliest inland community of significance…I know of no other village in Virginia better suited for the study of everyday life in the early republic. –C. Allan Brown, landscape historian
AMAZING DAY OF DISCOVERIES
After all these years of looking for 18th century history in the backyard of my former home, I had no idea that, Lafayette, and even a hint of Napoleon were in my favorite area, and that we shared a location of Broad Run.
