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Millan Family Cemetery

GPS Coordinates: 38.7695905, -77.1305243
Closest Address: 6828 Heatherway Court, Alexandria, VA 22315

Millan Family Cemetery

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

The Millan Family Cemetery is situated on common ground in the Tartan Village townhouse development. Most of the stones are either broken or displaced. A chain link fence now surrounds the site. The Millan farm is marked as "old cemetery" on the McDowell map that was published in 1862. The cemetery is clean and well maintained.

James Millan and his wife Susanna are buried on their farm (Dairy Lodge), high on the hillside above the tavern site, which was located on Telegraph Road at Dogue Creek, just north of the Tartan Village subdivision. In 1822 the tavern was advertised as being on the Stage Road five miles from Alexandria formerly occupied by Hendley Nelson. The tavern was later used as a polling place for that precinct.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society Cemetery Project:

MILLAN FAMILY CEMETERY
On Heatherway Court about ten feet west of the intersection of Heatherway and Avalon Place
South Alexandria, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

The Millan Family Cemetery is on Heatherway Court about ten feet west of the intersection of Heatherway and Avalon Place in the midst of the Tartan Village townhouse development.

This small cemetery was once on the grounds of James Millan’s home, “Dairy Lodge,” according to historian Edith M. Sprouse in her paper about the Collard and Darrell families, on file in the Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library. Dairy Lodge was situated along Telegraph Road (Route 611) near Dogue Creek which is northeast of the Millan family plot. James Millan’s daughter Stacia married John Ricketts Collard.

In 1979, before development of the area, the cemetery was the subject of a Fairfax County Archeological Survey. The surveyor found the site overgrown. At that time several headstones and footstones stood in the cemetery. Some of the graves were “disturbed.”

The gravestones were recorded in 1989, 1997 and 1998. Today the cemetery stands on the common grounds of Tartan Village. A chain link fence with gate surrounds the extant gravestones. An old cedar and two other trees stand within the fence along with a few old stumps. The site is fairly well maintained by the homeowners’ association, although surveyors noted evidence of extensive vandalism.

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books

The cemetery is situated on common ground in the Tartan Village townhouse development. A 1979 archaeological survey, prior to construction, found the site densely overgrown and most of the stones wither broken or displaced. A chain link fence now surrounds the site, which is maintained by the homeowners association, however most of the gravestones recorded in 1979 have disappeared. The stones were (1) Sarah Ann Millan (d. 1831); (2) Elizabeth Millan (d. 1831); (3) James Millian (d. 1844); and (4) Susanna Millan (d. 1831)


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All are "daughter" or "son" .. "of James and Susanna Millan". They apparently named children after themselves. The year of the deaths all seem to be 1831, and the days could(!) all be 16th. It is possible that the dates are all the same. If they all died on the same day, that would suggest a violent death; different days in the same year and month, perhaps a contagious disease.

Millan, Elizabeth L. 1803 - Sep(?) ?0 1831 (second digit of the day seems(!) to be "0") (died age 28)
Millan, J.L. 1819? - Sep 16 1831(?) (Died age 12)
Millan, Susanna 181?-1831 (?) (Died age 2?, in her twenties)
2 others, broken and worn head stones


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Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website which lists this Millan cemetery as unknown for some strange reason:

UNNAMED CEMETERY - TELEGRAPH ROAD NEAR VAN DORN STREET
North side of Telegraph Road (Route 611) east of the proposed extension of Van Dorn Street
South Alexandria, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

The “Map of North Eastern Virginia and Vicinity of Washington” which was compiled on 1 January 1862, under the direction of General Irvin McDowell, depicts a cemetery on the north side of Telegraph Road (Route 611) east of the proposed extension of Van Dorn Street, according to Brian A. Conley in Cemeteries of Fairfax County, Virginia. No other information is known about this site.

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books

ABOUT ME

Award-winning local historian and tour guide in Franconia and the greater Alexandria area of Virginia.

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ADDRESS

Nathaniel Lee

c/o Franconia Museum

6121 Franconia Road

Alexandria, VA 22310

franconiahistory@gmail.com

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