Peake Family Cemetery

Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

PEAKE FAMILY CEMETERY
Southeast of Gum Springs Community Center at the end of Fordson Road
South Alexandria, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

The Peake Family Cemetery is located southeast of the Gum Springs Community Center (formerly Drew-Smith Elementary School) at the end of Fordson Road. About one-fourth of the cemetery lies on the grounds of Martin Luther King, Jr. Park (formerly Little Hunting Creek Park). The cemetery may also be described as lying behind the Hunting Creek Townhouses at the end of Jackies Lane. The site is under the jurisdiction of the Fairfax County Park Authority.

William Peake settled in this area before 1732, according to a 1980 Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory and research by Edith Sprouse which is on file in the Virginia Room of the Fairfax City Regional Library. Mrs. Sprouse’s research was submitted to the Fairfax Historical Landmarks Preservation Commission on 6 July 1968, by Joyce Wilkinson, to support the organization’s efforts to preserve and protect the Peake Family Cemetery during the development of the adjacent community park.

The Peake property was just across Little Hunting Creek from Mount Vernon (q.v.). William Peake served with Augustine Washington, father of George Washington, in the first vestry of Truro Parish, according to Mrs. Wilkinson’s paper. When William Peake died in 1762, George Washington was chosen to fill the vestry vacancy. William and his son Humphrey are mentioned many times in George Washington’s diaries during the years from 1760 to 1799.

After William Peake’s death, his land was divided among his five children. One of his descendants, Doctor Humphrey Peake, eventually lost the family farm through bankruptcy in about 1829, according to the buildings survey. The property was divided and then sold, primarily to freed slaves from the Washington, Mason and Peake families.

A sign at the cemetery says the site is “rumored” to have been a slave cemetery, as well as a family cemetery. The buildings survey reports that “after the departure of the Peake family,” the cemetery continued to be used “by black families of local prominence. Members of the Ford and Javins families are interred in the cemetery.”*

After the community voiced concerns about the safety of the cemetery during the development of the park in 1968, the Fairfax Park Authority removed the gravestones for repair and safekeeping. The markers were remounted in early 1972, and white posts were placed around the perimeter of the cemetery. A fence was eventually installed some time after 1986, when a complaint was filed by a family descendant. A 30 October 1975 Fairfax Journal article about the Gum Springs Community’s efforts to clean up the cemetery as a bicentennial project described the family burial plot as abandoned and overgrown. The 1994 and 1998 surveyors, however, found the cemetery clean and well maintained.

The cemetery was surveyed in 1968, 1973, 1987, 1988, 1994 and 1998. The Clemments, the Adams and the three Peake gravestones are carved sandstone of unusual design. The other gravestones are marble.

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books

* West Ford (1784-1863) was a slave at Mount Vernon who was freed by Bushrod Washington (George Washington’s nephew), according to the cemetery sign and a brochure about the Mount Vernon Slave Cemetery (q.v.) where he is thought to be buried. When Bushrod Washington died in 1829, according to an article about the area around the Peake Family Cemetery in the 22 August 1991 Mount Vernon Gazette, West Ford received 160 acres of marshland. He sold that land and bought 214 acres in the Gum Springs area in 1833. Some of his descendants are buried in the Peake Family Cemetery; others still live in the community.