Huntley (D.A.R. Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

Huntley

The Huntley mansion house and its surrounding farm complex were built circa 1820 as a secondary residence for Thomson Francis Mason and his wife Elizabeth Clapman Price. Thomson Francis Mason, a prominent Virginia lawyer, was active in Alexandria politics until his death in 1838. He was a grandson of the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, George Mason, IV, of Gunston Hall.

Marker Erected 1992 by Freedom Hill Chapter, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, in celebration of the Centennial of the Virginia Daughters of the American Revolution, on May 24th.


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Here follows an excerpt from the 1970 Fairfax County Master Inventory of Historic Sites which contained entries from the Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory:

Huntley was built about 1820 on Mason family land for Thomson F. Mason, a grandson of George Mason of Gunston Hall. It was not the personal residence of the Mason family, however, but was used by a succession of renters, overseers and farmers. The property passed out of the Mason family in 1862, in payment of Mason's son's debts.

Huntley consists of a dwelling; necessary with flanking storage rooms; root cellar and storage room; ice house; dairy-spring house; and tenant house. All are brick and from roughly the same period, the first quarter of the 19th century. The brick is laid in common bond ranging from three to five stretcher courses. The ice house is a domed structure, fully below ground, laid entirely in headers.

The house is essentially Federal in character, though possessing certain elements transitional to the Greek Revival. Most doors, including the center section doors with fan and side lights, all mantels, sash and moldings are Federal. The house is built into a hillside in an "H" shape so that the center section is three story to the front, two to the rear, flanked by projecting wings two story to the front, one to the rear. The roof is now a ridge one with shed extensions over the wings which have projecting ridge roofs. There is evidence that the center section roof was originally hip. Massive chimneys are located on each side at the intersection of the wings and center portion. The center section has been extended to the end of the wings at the rear.

Certain stylistic elements of the house appear in this area principally in structures designed by George Hadfield, one of the superintendents of the construction of the U.S. Capitol. For this and other reasons, it is possible that the house derived from a design by Hadfield.


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Regarding Huntley: From pages tacked up in a glass-covered bulletin board near this marker. “One mystery of Huntley’s past is that the two rectangular masonry wings on the east and west sides apparently were built before the central block was built. They are separate from the center, not joined by any brickwork, but merely abutted. All of the doorways that join the wings to the central block were punched through the finished walls of the wings, in contrast to the exterior doors on both wings, and central block, all of which were constructed properly with masonry lintels and dressed door jambs. ...

Difficult to photograph are the remains of the “falling gardens” or earthen terraces in front of the mansion. Today they are lawn.

“The Civil War at Huntley. At the beginning of the war, Huntley was being farmed by a tenant, George Johnson, who was a Union sympathizer. There is some irony in the fact that the Mason brothers joined the Confederate army, with Arthur Pendleton serving on the staffs of Generals Lee and Johnston, while their tenant Johnson provided supplies to the Union. During the winter of 1861, troops of the 3rd Michigan Infantry camped at Huntley, and their quartermaster and his wife lived in the house. This may be why Huntley was not burned during the war.”


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Here follows an excerpt from the "Historic Huntley" website about the home:

A 19th-Century Mystery:
Huntley was not the Thomson F. Mason family seat as Gunston Hall had been his grandfather's and Hollin Hall his father's. It was, however, an embellishment of the federal city environs, and it represented the new, not the old, in architecture.

Evidence suggests the house may have been a summer vacation home. Its hilltop position takes advantage of cooling breezes. It boasts a subterranean domed ice house, too big for a single family but just right for parties and gatherings of an extended family.

In addition, the grounds were terraced and formally landscaped, an indication that they might have been used for outdoor entertaining. However, no one is certain how Huntley was originally used. The house and grounds are too sophisticated for a mere overseer's residence. Correspondence from Thomson's grandmother indicates that she had planned to spend a weekend at Huntley, but refused to visit the farm alone while the apparently disagreeable overseer was there.

How Huntley Came to Be:
George Mason bought a large parcel of land between Dogue Run (now Dogue Creek) and Little Hunting Creek in 1757. In 1817, Mason's eldest son divided the property between his sons Thomson F. and Richard. In 1823, Thomson F. Mason augmented the 640 acres received from his father with another 180 acres on the hill overlooking the fertile valley. Huntley was built on this hill by local artisans between 1825 and 1830.

Throughout this time, Huntley was run as a farm. Thomson F. Mason raised corn, rye, wheat, and oats on land now incorporated into Huntley Meadows Park. Earth berms and ditches in the park indicate that the land had to be drained for farming.

Thomson F. Mason managed the property through an overseer. Personal property tax records indicate that he owned approximately 20 slaves in Fairfax County, where Huntley was his main property. However, he remained a resident of Alexandria, where he practiced law and held public office.

In his will, Thomson F. Mason left his extensive land holdings and his principal residence in Alexandria, the stately home Colross, to his wife Betsey. In 1859, Mrs. Mason deeded Huntley to her elder sons, John Francis and Arthur Pendleton.

The Civil War at Huntley:
At the beginning of the war, Huntley was being farmed by a tenant, George Johnson, who was a Union sympathizer. There is some irony in the fact that the Mason brothers joined the Confederate army, with Arthur Pendleton serving on the staffs of Generals Lee and Johnston, while their tenant Johnson provided supplies to the Union.

During the winter of 1861, troops of the 3rd Michigan Infantry camped at Huntley, and their quartermaster and his wife lived in the house. This may be why Huntley was not burned during the war. In 1862, ownership of Huntley passed to Dr. Benjamin King, a close family friend, in payment of a debt of $13,000.

After the Civil War, Dr. King sold the property to Albert W. Harrison and Nathan W. Pierson, who were farmers from New Jersey. In 1871, they divided the property. Harrison kept the portion containing Huntley, which remained in his family's hands until 1946. Harrison Lane was named for him.


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Here follows an excerpt about the house from Donald Hakenson's "This Forgotten Land" tour guide:

The Huntley house was built circa 1825 by Thomson F. Mason, the grandson of George Mason. It was George Mason who wrote the Virginia Constitution of 1776. Thomson Mason was President of the Middle Turnpike Company, the Alexandria Canal Company and was also Mayor of Alexandria.

During the Civil War George W. Johnson was a tenant at Huntley. George Johnson had two nephews in the Union Army. Sergeant John W. Johnson was in Captain Samuel Means Loudoun Rangers, the only organized body of troops from the state of Virginia to fight for the Union Army, and Richard Barnhouse, an ambulance driver in the Army of the Potomac. George Johnston wrote after the war:

"I offered to shoulder any musket with others to go out and shoot the Rebels, who had been shooting at our pickets along Pike Run, just outside Alexandria ... I sat on my porch and listened to the Battle of Bull Run and we hoped we would have a great Union victory. I felt pretty badly when I found out how the battle had gone."

George Johnson also stated that he believed that a short time after the Union Army returned from the Peninsula campaign that all the corn was taken by General Sickles' men, and that many of the hogs were killed by the Garibaldi Regiment. It was also reported by neighbors that Richardson's Brigade was camped on the Huntley house grounds. The Huntley farm was occupied by Union troops in the fall of 1861 and the winter of 1862.

The Huntley house is on the National Register of Historic Places because of its architecture.