Cedar Grove Plantation Home (Site)

These coordinates are estimates of where the home once stood. No visible remains exist.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Clio Foundation website as written by Mike Damiano on behalf of History Revealed, Inc. and Molly Kerr:

Introduction
Captain Daniel McCarty (ca. 1725 - 1792) was a man invested in his 18th-century Fairfax, Virginia, community. McCarty was raised by his parents Dennis and Sarah (Ball) McCarty along with his two brothers and two sisters. Once Daniel turned 21, Dennis's will (1742) left Daniel the entire McCarty family estate, along with 7 enslaved individuals (George, Frederick, Nan, Lottie, Sarah, Phill, and Will). In 1748, Daniel married Sinah Ball, daughter of Major James Ball of Lancaster County, Virginia. Daniel and Sarah had five children: Sarah, Sinah, Anne, Daniel, and Mary. McCarty lived until 1792, and passed his property along to his children, primarily his son, Daniel.

Backstory and Context
The original McCarty family estate was located on present-day Fort Belvoir. Today, Fort Belvoir commemorates much of this land as the McCarty loop hiking trail, bordering Accotink Bay.

In 1760, Captain Daniel McCarty owned a sizable amount of land (approximately 3,000 acres) compared to the rest of the Fairfax community, including 24 enslaved individuals; he was in the top 15 of land owners in the county, with even more land in the county than George Washington. The original McCarty lands were known as Cedar Grove, and sometimes confused with the adjacent Mount Air which was across Accotink Creek. The house at Cedar Grove was likely built by McCarty’s grandfather, Daniel, sometime after 1714 when the land was acquired by patent. Also on the land was a tobacco warehouse established by the General Assembly in 1744 (originally authorized in 1732, but not built).

Daniel McCarty was an important figure in the history of Truro Parish and the Pohick Church. Daniel’s father, Dennis, served the church as a vestryman from 1732 to 1741, and on October 9, 1749, Daniel followed in his father’s footsteps. Vestrymen served as legal representatives of the parish, and they helped deal with the exchange of property and goods through the church. Found throughout the first Vestry Minutes book for Truro Parish (1732 - 1785), Daniel McCarty was involved in various ways with the church for 35 years (1749 - 1784). McCarty was the second-longest serving vestryman of anyone in Truro Parish, and in 1751 was appointed churchwarden for the first time (to serve as such in 1752); churchwardens were appointed from within the vestry to oversee the financial responsibilities of the church (like collecting tithes) and served one year terms. McCarty went on to serve the church as a churchwarden nine additional times, the most out of anyone in Truro Parish as found in the minutes from 1732-1785. Daniel McCarty’s long-lasting work for the Truro Parish solidified him as a prominent figure in the 18th-century Fairfax community.

Just as important as his role with the Truro Parish, Daniel McCarty was an original trustee in the formation of the town of Colchester on the Occoquan River. In 1753, the General Assembly authorized the establishment of a new town on the property of Peter Wagener. Five gentleman, including McCarty, were responsible for laying out the twenty-five acres into a lots available for sale, as well as land for a market place and public landing. An early business in Colchester was the a general store run by Alexander Henderson on behalf of the Glasgow firm of John Glassford & Company and McCarty opened an account at the store within months of its opening. His account can be found throughout all the surviving Colchester ledgers (1758-1769), as well as at the firm's store in Alexandria. Some years, McCarty made few purchases, likely sending for supplies directly from England. Other years, his purchases were extensive (1764) - fabrics, thread, buttons, ribbon, pins, and tape; powder and shot; gallons of rum, pounds of sugar, tea and canisters, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, indigo, alum, coffee, and molasses; hinges, tacks, nails, and locks; combs, hats, gloves, penknives, hose, and handkerchiefs. His accounts also show his connections to the community for the men and women who purchased against his account or made deposits to it: Henry Boggiss, Smith King, Abraham Barnes, Bryan Fairfax, Hector Ross, George Fling, Bennet Hill, James Ewil, William Gladden, Mrs Barnes, James Simons, Mrs Fairfax, Thomas Ewil, John Hough, Jacob Marshall, Thomas Marshall, George Johnston, William Veale, Richard Chicester, Thomas Bosley, William Weston, William Linton. Some of these men may have been tenants on McCarty's lands, friends (like the Fairfaxes), or individuals who used the store as a way to be paid or repay McCarty for goods and services. Members of McCarty's household purchased against his account as well: his son, daughter, wife, and an unnamed enslaved man made several purchases too.

Prior to his death, Daniel McCarty's son, Daniel, and his wife, Sally Mason McCarty, took up residence at Cedar Grove where they raised their family. The Cedar Grove family cemetery remains not far from where house stood - several of its headstones having been relocated to the churchyard of Pohick Church. In 1994, a secondary cemetery was identified that may have been the remains of a cemetery for the enslaved of Cedar Grove. The house survived until World War I when it was demolished as the army took over the area and created Camp Humphreys, later renamed Fort Belvoir.


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Here follows a biography of Jack McCarty as written by Sharon Virts and published on her personal website:

John Mason “Jack” McCarty was born on March 14, 1795 at Cedar Grove, a large plantation on Virginia’s Northern Neck at the confluence of the Accotink Creek into the Pohick Bay. Jack was the second youngest of eleven children, ten of whom were sons, born to Colonel Daniel Ball McCarty II and Sarah Eilbeck Mason. Descended from Irish nobility, his paternal grandmother and George Washington were cousins, and his maternal grandfather was founding father, George Mason IV. Jack received his primary education from private tutors and later attended George Town Academy. He briefly attended the College of New Jersey at Princeton before the War of 1812 where he served in the 60th Regiment of the Virginia Militia under the command of Lt. Col. Nicholas Minor. Sometime after the war, he was promoted to the rank of Captain. In late 1814, he returned to the College of William and Mary with his brothers Howard and William, completing his undergraduate studies and earning his law degree.

Jack stood at six feet with dark wavy hair and piercing bright eyes. He was known for his ready wit, excellent memory, and was said to demonstrate an inexhaustible flow of spirits. In 1818, he was elected as a delegate to the Virginia legislature but resigned his seat before taking his oath of office as a result of violating Virginia’s Anti Dueling Act. After his duel with Armistead Mason, Jack fled to New York City, where he remained for the better part of a year before returning to his hometown. He married Lucinda Lee in December 1820, and the couple ultimately settled along the banks of the Potomac on the lands he inherited from his father. There, he built a fine home for their small family and established a horse farm, with hay being the only crop grown. In Leesburg, he built a large mill on the banks of the Tuscarora creek and opened a hotel in Washington City he named the American Hotel. He was a major investor in the C&O canal and in the construction of other canals in western territories. By 1830, Jack had been promoted to colonel in the Virginia militia and was a respected attorney, politician, and businessman in the region.

Jack’s business ventures paled in comparison to the investments he made in land speculation in the western territories. He travelled extensively to the Indian territories of the northwest, making investments in both Wisconsin and Michigan, and was responsible for investments in Milwaukee, Green Bay and Detroit, and the establishment of the towns of Menasha and Neenah in Wisconsin.

Jack became a leader in the Whig party and the head of Young Whig fraction. He served one term in the Virginia legislature from 1834-1835 and campaigned for the House of Representative in 1842, an election he lost. He remained active in politics until his death, which occurred while on a business trip to Detroit in 1852. He was initially buried in Leesburg but reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond to be laid by Lucinda’s side at her death shortly thereafter.