Owsley Family Cemetery

Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

OWSLEY FAMILY CEMETERY
At the head of Gunston Cove, near the confluence of Accotink and Pohick Creeks
Fort Belvoir, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

An Owsley Family Cemetery has been reported at the head of Gunston Cove, near the confluence of Accotink and Pohick Creeks. Thomas Owsley settled in this area in the late 1600s, according to “Frontier Fairfax County: Tangible Genealogy and the ‘Owsleys’ of Pohick,” by Michael F. Johnson which appeared in a 1990 issue of Fairfax Chronicles.

Owsley’s home may be “the Old Plantation” depicted on the 1716 map drawn by Thomas Hooper for his survey of Captain Daniel McCarty’s land, according to Johnson. Another map drawn for Daniel Jenning’s survey for French Mason v. Daniel McCarty (1748), includes buildings in the same general location and “refers to them as, ‘Mr. Barnes houses: where Owlsy did live. is mentioned in Elizabeth Connel’s deposi-tion. Owsly buryd there, as by a tombstone. he dyed October ye 10th 1700 (sic).’” Both of these maps are reproduced in Beginning at a White Oak... by Beth Mitchell.

Johnson’s article includes a reference to the murder of one of Owsley’s female slaves by local Indians, an event described in detail in “Tomahawks, Liquor and Provincial Justice” in Raphael Semmes’s Captains and Mariners of Early Maryland. Johnson believes that archeological research may uncover at least two graves on Owsley’s seventeenth century property. It is possible that there was a family cemetery and a slave cemetery at the Old Plantation.

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books


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Here follows an excerpt from the Find A Grave website:

Thomas Owsley was buried on his plantation in what was at the time Stafford County, Virginia, but is now Fort Belvoir, Fairfax County, Virginia. The site of Thomas Owlsey's burial is known from historical records. An 1883 chancery suit, Otterback vs. Hughes, includes a deposition made by Jonathan Roberts, the former county surveyor, who deposed, "His house was on the part of the Cedar Grove Estate that I bought of William McCarty in the year 1848, where the said Thomas Owsley lived and died in the year A.D. 1700 and was buried near his dwelling as was marked on the plat of the survey of the Cedar Grove Estate before mentioned in the valley about one third of a mile east of the present mansion where a large cedar tree had grown over his grave and tomb stone on which were cut his name, age, where he came from in England and when he died 1700 and said tombstone was there when I moved away in the year of A.D. 1869."

The area that encompassed Thomas Owsley's plantation underwent extensive archaeological excavation in the 1990s. For more information, refer to Report on the History of the Barnes-Owsley Site, prepared by Anne Schwermer for the Directorate of Public Works, U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Belvoir, 1995.

Major Thomas Owsley, I, was a son of Rev. John Owsley and Dorothea Poyntz Owsley.

Major Thomas Owsley, I married Ann Bayne Harris in 1689 in Jamaica, Middlesex, Virginia. They had seven children.

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NOTES:
Born in Stoke-Coursey, now Stogursey.
Other possible marriage range of years: about 1680 or as late as 1685/1689.

Owsley Family Historical Society shows Major Thomas Owsley, I was buried on Fort Belvoir Military Reservation in Fairfax County, Virginia, formerly his plantation in Stafford County, Virginia.

From Jane Riggs Curci on January 28, 2017:
"About 1680, Major Thomas Owsley married Ann Harris, apparently the only child of Lieutenant William Harris, a former British Army officer whose presence is attested to in Stafford County in the 1660s, and in whose will of 1698 devised all of his land to his Owsley grandchildren. Ann survived her husband by many years. On 13 March 1700/1, she transacted two sales of land, one, a parcel on the South side of Acquia Creek being sold to Daniel Beach for 3000 pounds of tobacco and the other, approximately 650 acres upon Oququon River, to Edward Barton for 4000 pounds of tobacco.
(Stafford Co. Record Book, 1699-1709, p. 59-60, 62-63)

An important document in establishing the offspring of Major Thomas Owsley who married Ann Harris, the daughter of Lieutenant William Harris is a deed of partition dated 29 March 1741 in the records of Prince William County. It reveals that on 24 March 1697/8 William Harris composed his will leaving all of his land in Stafford County to his "granddaughters" Jane and Anne Owsley to be equally divided between them. If they had no heirs, the land should go to Mary Owsley, and if she had no heirs it should go to the testator's grandson Thomas Owsley. The deed of partition goes on to relate that Jane married James Gregg and Anne married Isaac Kent and that their heirs in 1741 were Matthew Gregg of Stafford County and Isaac Kent of Prince William County.
(Prince William Co. Deeds, E, p. 305-309)"

From Ronny Bodine on August 2, 2018:
""In 1883, in a chancery suit of Otterback vs. Hughes involving lands formerly part of the McCarty estate (and originally the plantation of Major Owsley), the former county surveyor Jonathan Roberts, then residing in Iowa, was required to make a deposition in the case.

Roberts had bought part of the Cedar Grove estate including the Cedar Grove mansion. He recalled having surveyed part of the McCarty land for William McCarty around 1850 on the occasion of a land dispute, at which time he had been provided, among other papers, with the original 1694 Owsley patents. Asked if he could show proof of such claims, he stated:

"His [Owsley's] house was on the part of the Cedar Grove Estate that I bought of William McCarty in the year 1848, where the said Thomas Owsley lived and died in the year A.D. 1700 and was buried near his dwelling as was marked on the plat of the survey of the Cedar Grove Estate before mentioned [the 1748 map] in the valley about one third (1/3) of a mile east of the present mansion where a large cedar tree had grown over his grave and tomb stone on which were cut his name, age, where he came from in England and when he died i.s. 1700 and said tombstone was there when I moved away in the year [illegible word] of A.D. 1869."

So, in 1869, Major Thomas Owsley's gravestone was still in place under a large cedar tree. In the 1990's, the area that encompassed his plantation underwent extensive archaeological excavation, but nothing was reported of finding his gravestone or burial site. The above details and further details concerning the excavation are contained in Report on the History of the Barnes-Owsley Site, prepared by Anne Schwermer for the Directorate of Public Works, U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Belvoir, 1995.""

Bio and NOTES by: Pam Barns


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Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

UNNAMED CEMETERY - FORT BELVOIR
In the Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge on the grounds of Fort Belvoir
Fort Belvoir, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

While exploring the grounds of the McCarty estate Cedar Grove (q.v.), Brian Conley, Information Specialist in the Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library, discovered a densely overgrown cemetery on the west side of Accotink Bay, approximately 1,500 feet southwest of the mouth of Accotink Creek. The area is now located in the Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge on the grounds of Fort Belvoir.

In an interview in December 1961, a Mr. Tyler, who lived on the estate for many years beginning in the early 1880s, stated that the Cedar Grove Slave Cemetery was along the shore of Accotink Bay. He remembered many small gravestones in the cemetery which were “all taken away,” according to the interview notes which are on file in the Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library.

Mr. Conley believes that the cemetery he located in 1994 may be the Cedar Grove Slave Cemetery or possibly a family cemetery established by a family who lived at Cedar Grove after the McCarty family.

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books