Built 1800-1805 Boundary increase Area 65 ha Architectural style Federal architecture Architect William Thornton | VLR # 029-0056 Designated NHL August 6, 1998 Opened 1805 Added to NRHP 26 February 1970 | |
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Location West of junction of U.S. 1 and Rte. 235, Alexandria, Virginia NRHP Reference # 70000792 (original)
11000836 (increase) Similar Pope‑Leighey House, Belle Grove Plantation, George Washington's Gristmill, Madewood Plantation House, Gunston Hall | ||
Woodlawn plantation
Woodlawn Plantation is a historic house located in Fairfax County, Virginia. Originally a part of Mount Vernon, George Washington's historic plantation estate, it was subdivided in the 19th century by abolitionists to demonstrate the viability of a free labor system. The address is now 9000 Richmond Highway, Alexandria, Virginia, but due to expansion of Fort Belvoir and reconstruction of historic Route 1, access is via Woodlawn Road slightly south of Jeff Todd Way/State Route 235. The house is a designated National Historic Landmark, primarily for its association with the Washington family, but also for the role it played in the historic preservation movement. It is now a museum property owned and managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
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History
George Washington planned the house to overlook Dogue Creek as well as be visible from (and viewing) Mount Vernon. In 1799 he gave the plantation (2,000 acres (810 ha) of land as well as gristmill and distillery) as a wedding present to Eleanor ("Nelly" or "Nellie") Parke Custis (Martha Washington's granddaughter who was raised on the Mount Vernon estate), and his nephew Major Lawrence Lewis. The President asked architect Dr. William Thornton, who had designed the U.S. Capitol, to design them a house.
Construction began in 1800 and was finished in 1805. Today, 126 acres containing the original house, surrounding gardens and a small sustainable farm are all that remain of the original plantation.
President Washington freed his slaves in his will (though not those belonging to his wife), and Nellie Custis Lewis followed his example and became a leading abolitionist in Virginia. The Lewis family operated the farm using about 90 slaves, but Nellie manumitted some slaves, as well as was active in the American Colonization Society. In late 1846, she sold the property to a group of Burlington County, New Jersey Quakers from outside Philadelphia led by Chalkley Gillingham (1807-1881) and Jacob Troth. They harvested wood and began subdividing it into smaller farms to demonstrate that a free labor system could work at least as well as slave labor. The Quakers founded a cemetery and built a meetinghouse nearby in 1851 (for the Fairfax Section of the Alexandria Friends Meeting).
Circa 1850, the Quakers sold Woodlawn house and some land to Baptist John Mason, who likewise refused to use slave labor. By 1859, he and his wife operated a Sunday School on the property. After the American Civil War, his sons Ebenezer E. Mason and Otis T. Mason would found a Baptist church and burial ground across from the Quaker meetinghouse. Eben Mason and Quaker John Hawxhurst were Fairfax County's two Unionist delegates to the Wheeling Convention of 1861 which established the state of West Virginia. Hawxhurst would become one of Fairfax County's delegates to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868.
Woodlawn's manor house has fallen into disrepair several times, but all of its owners, recognizing its historic significance, worked to preserve its character. However, portions of the plantation property were sold for development or merged into Fort Belvoir over the years. Progressive former U.S. Senator Oscar Underwood, one of the last Southern politicians to fight the Ku Klux Klan before World War II, retired to Woodlawn plantation, where he died in 1929. Only about 160 acres surrounded the manor house by 1970, and about 120 today. Since 1965, as discussed below, Woodlawn Plantation is now also the site of the Pope-Leighey House, a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house.
Current status
Woodlawn Plantation is owned and operated as a museum by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, part of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation. It was the National Trust's first acquisition, achieved in the late 1960s as part of a nationwide campaign that included major donations from philanthropist Paul Mellon. It and the adjacent Pope-Leighey House are open to the public (admission charged) Friday throgh Monday from March 1 until mid-December. It also hosts special events, and tours (including of the sustainable farm) for school and other groups by appointment.
In 1965, construction on Interstate 66 led to that home built in 1940 by architect Frank Lloyd Wright for Loren Pope to be moved to the grounds of the Woodlawn plantation. Four years later, Virginia's historic preservation office nominated Woodlawn plantation for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and such was approved in 1970. Woodlawn plantation was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1998, and the boundaries were increased slightly in 2011 by a donation of land from nearby Fort Belvoir which had been part of the Woodlawn plantation. The Quaker Meeting House once part of the plantation was added to the National Register in 2009. The farm has been operated to demonstrate sustainable agriculture by the Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture since 2010.
A different plantation with the same name on the Rappahannock River near Port Conway on Virginia's Northern Neck is the centerpiece of the Woodlawn Historic and Archeological District, recognized in 1990.