After a snowstorm, my son came home from work and took me to Tackett’s Mill Shopping Center, down the road from our apartment.
When he first brought me here last winter, after he discovered a covered bridge (which I’ve long looked for off Old Bridge Road), we purposed to return during a prettier season to take gorgeous pictures.
Except busy lives during the prettier seasons of spring, summer, and autumn led to no neat photography, so today redeemed that!
Loving this residential setting, I began talking with my son about how we might save money to buy this house together, for him to eventually inherit for his own family, since I’ll probably always need a roommate for financial reasons.
TACKETT MILL, VIRGINIA
Anglicized from the French name Tacquette, the small town of Tackett’s Mill settled by Huguenots, was part of the Northern Neck Proprietary, a 1600s land grant from King Charles II that extended between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers from the Chesapeake Bay to its headwaters in the west.
Located in the western portion of Stafford County, which was established in 1664 and named for Staffordshire, England, the town built a grist mill in the early 1700s…which is reproduced here in Lake Ridge, twenty-eight miles away.
By the late 20th century, the Stafford County mill was in ruins.
TACKETT’S MILL SHOPPING CENTER IN LAKE RIDGE, VIRGINIA
Building a 60-acre retail, office, and residential village at the entrance to Lake Ridge when the community was first developed in 1971, Ridge Development Corp purchased the working remains of Tackett Mill, while reproducing its outer appearance to become the focal point for their project.
The covered bridge must hearken to the name of the road that runs through the community of Lake Ridge, Old Bridge Road.
At the time of developing the Lake Ridge community: the paved portion of Old Bridge Road (Lake Ridge’s thoroughfare) stopped at Antietam Drive at Woodbridge Senior High School, but continued west as a gravel road to the site of the present day Chinn Center, linking with Davis Ford Road, (now Prince William Parkway). –Potomac Local
1748 – GEORGE WASHINGTON AND GEORGE WILLIAM FAIRFAX
At the mill stands a historical marker which describes sixteen-year-old George Washington’s first journey west as a young surveyor, with George William Fairfax.
Near this site, a ferry allowed travelers to cross the Occoquan River about two miles below the falls (today’s Rt 1 bridge) in the 18th century.
At the time, George William Fairfax lived in Belvoir Mansion, which his father had built.
Located next to Mount Vernon, where Washington’s brother lived, Washington often visited his brother, from his home of Ferry Farm in Fredericksburg, befriending the Fairfax family since his brother married the girl next door, Sally Fairfax.
While the elder Fairfax mentored Washington after his father died, which caused him to pursue a trade in surveying, the younger Fairfax became estate agent for his father’s cousin, Lord Fairfax.
LORD FAIRFAX
While the original patent of the Northern Neck Proprietary was gifted to Lord Culpeper, for his support of King Charles II, the land was eventually inherited by Lord Fairfax, who moved to Virginia from England to manage his lands (a rare occurrence).
Settling in Frederick County in 1747, Lord Fairfax desired a survey of the western portion of his lands.
MARCH 1748 SOUTHERN ROUTE
In March of 1748, George Washington likely rode by horse from his Fredericksburg home to Mount Vernon to visit his brother and his wife, until meeting George William Fairfax to meet Lord Fairfax.
Reaching Neavil’s Ordinary that evening, located in today’s Fauquier County, south of Warrenton, Washington and Fairfax continued west.
WHY NOT THE NORTHERN ROUTE?
Surprised to see this historical marker of their southern route, I wondered why they didn’t take the Colonial Road (today’s Rt 7) was more direct to Lord Fairfax’s home and the headwaters of the Potomac, running from Alexandria to Winchester, and is documented for Washington’s many travels to Winchester.
Upon researching further, I found this article which gave a short bio of the actual surveyor of the expedition, James Genn, who lived near today’s town of Catlett.
Ah ha, that explains it, I’m certain!
Since I used to live on the boundary of Prince William and Fauquier counties, I’ve driven through Catlett numerous times.
Because Catlett is a bit further southwest from Neavil’s Ordinary, of which I’ve been trying to find more details for years, it all makes sense to me.
Quite likely, the next morning George William Fairfax and George Washington continued on to Falmouth Road so James Genn could join them.
The route from Falmouth Road to Lord Fairfax, Winchester, and the headwaters of the Northern Neck would give them lots of background information for their current project.
Since Genn was an established surveyor, he had on his resume the survey of the Northern Neck boundaries in 1746, and the next year he surveyed more of the Northern Neck, including Lord Fairfax’s new home of Greenway Court Manor, south of Winchester.
As payment from Lord Fairfax for his surveys, Genn received 1,080 acres in Orange County, on July 21,1748.
