Denty Family Farm (Site)

Here follows a history of the West Springfield Elementary School as published on the Fairfax County Public Schools website:

What's in a Name?
Learn about the origin of our school's name in this video produced for Fairfax County Public Schools’ cable television channel Red Apple 21.

West Springfield Elementary School opened in May 1965. The land where the school stands was once part of a 29-acre tract granted by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1792, to Enoch Ward, who worked as a tobacco inspector in the colonial-era port town of Colchester on the Occoquan River. In 1796, the granted land was sold to Jonathan Denty, and it remained in the Denty family until 1960. During the mid-19th century, the land was owned by Jonathan Denty’s son, James Compton Denty. A farmer and timber harvester, James Denty lived on a 285-acre farm on Rolling Road in the vicinity of the present-day Saratoga neighborhood. During the American Civil War, James Denty served as a Fairfax County Court justice under the Restored Government of Virginia. One of the quilt tops stitched by his wife, Sophia Barker Denty, between 1840 and 1860, resides in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Family tradition tells that the intricate patterns on the quilt top were inspired by an English garden near the family home. James and Sophia Denty were life-long members of Pohick Episcopal Church, and they and many of their descendants were laid to rest in its cemetery. Their youngest child, James Franklin Denty, inherited the future West Springfield property. Like his father, James Franklin Denty harvested timber for a living. He died in 1937, around the same time this aerial photograph was taken, which shows the future site of West Springfield Elementary School.