Belvoir (Plantage)

Belvoir was the historic plantation and estate of colonial Virginia's prominent Fairfax family. It was situated on the west bank of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia. It burnt in 1783 and was completely destroyed during the War of 1812. As Belvoir Mansion Ruins and the Fairfax Grave, the site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.

History

18th century

Origins
William Green's 1669 patent for Vorlage:Convert encompassed most of the peninsula between Dogue Creek and Accotink Creek, along the Potomac River. Although this property was sub-divided and sold in the early eighteenth century, it was reassembled during the 1730s to create the central portion of Col. William Fairfax's Vorlage:Convert plantation of Belvoir Manor.

Plantation house built
Fairfax's elegant new home was completed in 1741. Historic documents and archeological remains found at Belvoir Manor both attest to the elegant lifestyle enjoyed by the Fairfax family. The mansion itself, described in a 1774 rental notice, was spacious and well-appointed. Its furnishings consisted of "tables, chairs, and every other necessary article ... very elegant." Ceramics imported from Europe and the Orient graced its tables.

Planters like William Fairfax comprised a very small portion of Fairfax County's population; most of their neighbors were smaller farmers who sometimes barely managed to make a living. Moreover, the affluence of these planters was based not only on land and imposing buildings, but on the number of slaves they held. Slaves too are in the records-as chattel passed from one generation to another, and as the probable users of the plain unglazed ceramics found in the outbuildings of Belvoir Manor. After William Fairfax's death in 1757, the plantation passed to George William Fairfax (1729–87).

Lord Fairfax and Washington visit
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron moved to Virginia between 1735 and 1737 to inspect and protect his lands. Lord Fairfax came to Belvoir, to help oversee his family estates in Virginia's Northern Neck Proprietary between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, inherited from his mother, Catharine, daughter of Thomas Culpeper, 2nd Baron Culpeper of Thoresway, and a great portion of the Shenandoah and South Branch Potomac valleys. The northwestern boundary of his Northern Neck Proprietary was marked by the Fairfax Stone at the headwaters of the North Branch Potomac River. In 1752, Lord Fairfax moved to Greenway Court in the valley of Virginia closer to his undeveloped land. George Washington accepted a surveying assignment, for Lord Fairfax at Belvoir.

George William’s sister, Anne Fairfax, married Lawrence Washington soon after her brother had wed. A young George Washington, Lawrence’s half-brother, began to visit Belvoir frequently. Wishing to advance his brother’s fortunes, Lawrence introduced George to George William. A friendship grew between the two men, despite the fact that George William was considerably older. Yet a relationship also blossomed between Sally Fairfax and George Washington. George Washington and Bryan Fairfax also became friends.

Abandonment
When George William Fairfax left Belvoir for England in 1773, the estate was rented to Rev. Andrew Morton for 7 years, and its furnishings were sold at auction in 1774. It was confiscated during the hostilities, by the Virginia Act of 1779. In 1783, the mansion and several of its outbuildings were destroyed by fire, and, as Washington noted, the plantation complex gradually deteriorated into ruins. Ferdinando Fairfax, who inherited the property, apparently did not live there. The bluffs below the former mansion site were quarried for building stone, but the house site itself was not developed.

19th century

Belvoir Plantation was devastated further during the War of 1812. In August 1814, as British land forces attacked and burned the city of Washington, a British naval squadron sailed up the Potomac River and forced the surrender of Alexandria. The fleet then began the Vorlage:Convert return trip down river. On September 1, the British attempted to run the deep-water channel below the Belvoir house site, a position that previously had been identified as a strategic defensive location on the river. Here, a hastily assembled American force, composed of Virginia and Alexandria militia under the command of U.S. Navy Captain David Porter, hurriedly began to mount a battery on the bluff above the river. For four days, British and American forces exchanged cannon and musket fire. The British fleet eventually passed the American positions, but British shells demolished what little was left of the old Belvoir Manor.

The association of Belvoir Plantation with the Fairfax family ended with the death of Ferdinando Fairfax in 1820. During the next decade, William Herbert of Alexandria acquired the property, which he quickly used as collateral for a loan. During the 1830s, Thomas Irwin, Herbert's creditor, operated the shad fisheries at White House Point. However, Herbert's continued inability to pay his debts eventually led to the sale of Belvoir at public auction in 1838.

All of the great eighteenth century plantations in the Fort Belvoir area changed considerably in the years before the Civil War. Soil exhaustion and inheritance prompted the sale and sub-division of these formerly massive tracts of land. As a new generation of landowners took up residence in southeastern Fairfax County, patterns of land use and ownership were altered.

20th century

In 1917, the Belvoir property was consolidated and ceded to the U.S. Army by Virginia, eventually lending its name to the modern military instillation of Fort Belvoir.

The Belvoir ruins are on the National Register of Historic Places (1973), but access is restricted since they are on the military post.

See also

• Historic houses in Virginia

External links

• Belvoir in the Seventeenth Century. In: Historic Fort Belvoir. Dept. of the Army U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Belvoir, abgerufen am 16. Oktober 2008. 
• The Eighteenth Century:Fairfax County's "Golden Age". In: Historic Fort Belvoir. Dept. of the Army U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Belvoir, abgerufen am 16. Oktober 2008. 
• Belvoir in the Antebellum Period. In: Historic Fort Belvoir. Dept. of the Army U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Belvoir, abgerufen am 16. Oktober 2008. 

Vorlage:Fairfax family Vorlage:National Register of Historic Places