Bone Mill (Site)
GPS Coordinates: 38.7619062, -77.2064601
Closest Address: 7601 Hooes Road, Springfield, VA 22152

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the old mill once stood. No visible remains exist.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
"Bone mills" were watermills that were used to render animal bones down into agricultural fertilizer. These types of mills were often located in remote locations because of the distinctive smell that would have been prevalent. Precise details of the reduction process have not been recorded, but the usual procedure was that the bones were first boiled to make them brittle and to remove the fat. The fat would be skimmed off, and used for such things as coach and cart grease. The bones would be either chopped by hand or put through a toothed cylinder. Either process would reduce the bones to smaller, more manageable pieces. In the final process, the millstones powered by the waterwheel would grind the bone into powder.
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Here follows an excerpt from Donald Hakenson's "This Forgotten Land" tour guide:
The site of the Old Franconia Elementary School is across the street from Potters Lane on Old Franconia Road. According to Mr. Robert Potter, whose family lived in the area before the Civil War, the school was built in 1863. The Old Franconia School was the location where Ranger Joe Nelson attacked a Union outpost on August 8, 1864.
MOSBY'S RANGERS ON FRANCONIA ROAD.
Early in the morning on August 8, 1864, Lieutenant Colonel John S. Mosby came into Fairfax County with fifty rangers looking for a fight. A little after five o'clock in the morning, Mosby sent Walter Whaley and a few other rangers on a scouting mission looking for potential targets.
While Whaley was out scouting he was able to surround a picket about three miles southeast of Annandale on the Old Braddock Road. A corporal and three men from the Sixteenth New York Cavalry comprised the outpost. The rangers captured all the men and horses, except the corporal. He had gone to a nearby spring to et some water and escaped when the Southerners attacked. Whaley reported back to Mosby that there were two other picket posts on the Braddock road. Mosby wanted those picket posts because he wanted those horses.
After receiving this intelligence from Whaley, Mosby sent Lieutenant Joe Nelson, and fifteen or twenty rangers, to capture those two Union picket posts. One of the posts, suspecting an attack, moved off, but the second party posted near the Triplett house (behind where Edison High School is today), had taken refuge in a school house, situated on the Old Fairfax Road, today's Old Franconia Road. Nelson after arriving near the school house unseen, concealed their horses in the pines, and charged the building on foot, causing the Union pickets to flee.
The Union troopers fled out the back of the school house, mounted their steeds and fled down the Old Fairfax Road. Lieutenant Nelson and his rangers raced back to the pines, mounted their horses and pursued the fleeing troopers. Nelson actually chased the fleeing Union cavalrymen to within three miles of Alexandria (which would have put them somewhere near where Mark Twain Middle School is located today). Nelson's raid was successful because the rangers were able to capture at least three of the Union cavalrymen and their horses.
Although successful, Joe Nelson now had a problem. They were deep in enemy territory, close to the city of Alexandria where large numbers of Union troops could be sent to search for them. But, Nelson already had a plan. Assigned to his little unit was ranged Ab Minor, who had lived in the surrounding area before the war, and knew the land like the back of his hand. Unfortunately, it was late in the day and Minor became confused in the deep forests and completely lost his way. The farther the little band moved, the more disoriented Ab Minor became concerning his whereabouts.
At certain intervals, in the midst of ranger Minor's confusion, he would draw up his horse and could be repeatedly heard saying, "If I could only find 'Bone Mill,' it will be all right." Over and over the men could hear him make this statement. Bone Mill was a mill located on Accotink Creek between where Keene Mill Road and the Franconia/Springfield Parkway is today in Springfield. Everyone in the command was now looking and hoping desperately to find the now famous "Bone Mill."
Unfortunately, for ranger Minor, "Bone Mill" was nowhere to be found. The patrol spent the night in the pines, somewhere in the Kingstowne and Springfield area and finally linked up with Mosby and his men the very next day.
Normally that would be the end of the story, but it wasn't. Now everyone is Mosby's command was calling Ab Minor "Bone Mill Minor" and Ab Minor didn't like it. Finally a young ranger with a sharp tongue named Bill Trammell called him "Bone Mill" and Ab Minor, a man in his forties who had also served in the Mexican War, became enraged by the young man's lack of respect, pulled out his revolver and shot him. Fortunately for Trammell, it didn't kill him, but no other ranger ever called him "Bone Mill" ever again!
"BONE MILL" AND LUCELIA MINOR.
Albert George Minor was the son of Daniel and Mary (Moss) Minor and was born on July 31, 1823, in Alexandria, Virginia. He became a Fairfax County resident and a veteran of the Mexican War. He also rode with Mosby's Rangers in a raid in the Franconia area during the War Between The States. Lucy Shackleford Minor was born sometime around 1848, married a Union sutler in 1864 and lived with Albert Minor for thirty years after the war before agreeing to marry him after having nine children with him. Ab and Lucy, as they were commonly called, were a very interesting and controversial twosome. Here is their story:
On November 20, 1846, at age twenty-four, Ab Minor joined Company B, First Virginia Regiment and served honorably in the Mexican War. In 1850 he listed his occupation as "gentleman." A year after Virginia seceded from the Union, Minor enlisted as a private into Company F, Sixth Virginia Cavalry on May 24, 1862. He served with that unit until he was discharged on July 26, 1862. He then became a clerk for Major John Ambler, in the Quartermaster Department until he decided that this work was too mundane for an adventurer like himself. Samuel T. Bayley, in Richmond, convinced Private Minor to enlist into Company A, Forty-third Battalion Virginia Cavalry (or also known as Mosby's Rangers). He served as a ranger from July 1863 until he signed his parole on May 15, 1865 at Fairfax Court House, a little over a month from the date General Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia. Private Minor is profoundly remembered for losing his way while guiding Lieutenant Joseph Nelson and twenty Mosby Rangers through the thick forest somewhere between today's Kingstowne, Franconia and Springfield while searching for the infamous Bone Mill.
Minor also had the dubious distinction for shooting a fellow ranger, Private William Trammell. Trammell had maliciously called him "Bone Mill" Minor, after his futile episode in Franconia looking for that landmark. Upon hearing the slanderous slur, Minor then pulled his revolver and shot him. Luckily for Trammell, the bullet didn't kill him, but nobody else ever called Ab Minor "Bone Mill" ever again.
At his parole, at Fairfax Court House, Private Minor was described as five feet, eight inches tall, light complexion, brown hair, and hazel eyes. Ab Minor had now survived two major conflicts in American history.
After the war, Albert returned to farming and lived on the south side of Little River Turnpike near Braddock Road. In the 1880 census Albert was listed as single. However according to the book, "Annandale, Virginia, A Brief History," written by Robert Morgan Moxham, Albert Minor had a common-law wife, Lucy Carlin. The book further stated that Lucy Carlin was listed in the 1880 census as divorced and had five children that ranged in age from two to fifteen. Researching the Fairfax County marriage records I found that Albert G. Minor and Lucelia Carlin, a widow, were officially married on June 11, 1895, and made their home in the Lincolnia area. Lucelia and Private Minor had lived together for over thirty years and had nine children before they wed.
In the book, "Off to the War, The Virginia Volunteers in the War With Mexico" by William Page Johnson, II, I found the following statement from Lucelia: "We lived together and I was his common law wife for about thirty years. I had nine children by him. The reason we were not married sooner was because he would be liable to lose his property if he married against the wishes of his father's family and also he did not want to marry me until he was satisfied that my first husband was dead. Albert and I had been engaged before the war broke out and he went into the Confederate Army. While he was away I married George W. Carlin, a sutler in the Union Army. I was about seventeen years old then and had never been previously married... I had been acquainted with Carlin, my first husband, about five months before our marriage. We were married February 29, 1864 in Alexandria, Virginia at a private house. He came from Carrollton, Greene County, Illinois where he said he was born and raised... Carlin was about forty-five years of age when I married him... Carlin left me in August of 1865, saying he was going to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with the Reno expedition. I received one letter from him, posted at Annapolis, Maryland, about three or four weeks after his departure. About a month or so after I received a second letter posted at Indianapolis, Indiana... I have written to William Carlin (a brother) and to the editor of the paper there. I wrote for the purpose of ascertaining whether they knew what had become of my husband. I never received an answer and none of my letters was returned to me... When Carlin left here he wanted me to go with him, but my mother would not let me go as I was then within six weeks of giving birth to a child, they only one I ever had by Carlin. Her name is Emma. She is now the wife (of) Fred Leary who lives on Diamond Farm forty-five miles from Dove, New Hampshire... He told me that if I didn't go West with him he would never come back."
William Page Johnson further stated in his book, "During the last year of the Civil War George W. Carlin was employed as a 'Wood Watcher,'" in the Fourth Regiment Quartermaster Volunteers. He and Lucelia were living in a tent at Edsall's Hill, Fairfax County on the Orange and Alexandria Rail Road. According to one family source in Carrollton, Illinois, George Carlin died in 1867 or 1868 in Carrollton, Illinois after eating a radish.
Apparently, according to descendants of the Minor family, Lucelia married a third husband named Dameron in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1913 and moved to Florida and died there. No other records could be found about her.
Researching the Alexandria, Virginia burial records I found that Albert Minor died on January 9, 1896, and was buried in the Christ Church Cemetery, located on Wilkes Street, in Alexandria, Virginia. Unfortunately, after countless trips to the cemetery, there was not a readable stone with his name on it. His tombstone has been worn smooth over time and couldn't be read by anyone. An unfitting ending to a fascinating figure in Fairfax County history. Alas, the family realizing that his tombstone was unreadable had another really impressive tombstone made so anyone searching for the elusive ranger could find his final resting place with ease.
The Minor family installed a new tombstone for Private Albert G. “Bone Mill” Minor in the Christ Church Cemetery, located on Wilkes Street, in Alexandria, in October 2011. Private Minor had served with the Forty-third Battalion Virginia Cavalry or Mosby’s Rangers. The family installed the new marker after it was mentioned in a Franconia Museum newsletter article that, “His tombstone has been worn smooth over time and cannot be read by anyone. An unfitting ending to a fascinating figure in Fairfax County history.” Private Minor gained his nick name after a raid at the Franconia Elementary School on August 8, 1864. I truly trust everyone will like the image of the Bone Mill Minor tombstone. Not only is his name now readable for all to see, it also verifies that he served with the gallant Confederate guerilla chieftain Colonel John S. Mosby.