Sangster Elementary School

Here follows a history of the 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.

Sangster Elementary School opened in September 1988. The school was named for a nearby creek, Sangster Branch, which begins northwest of the school near Lee Chapel Road and flows southeast into Middle Run. Unlike many other creeks in Fairfax County, Sangster Branch was not given its name when our region was first viewed by English settlers during the 1600s. In fact, Sangster Branch was not named until either the mid-19th century or the early 20th century, taking its name for a family that lived along the waterway. In the late 1700s, Richard Chichester of Newington Plantation owned some 1,200 acres of land along Middle Run and its headwaters. In 1818, sisters Betty Lee and Mary Lee, granddaughters of Richard Chichester, inherited a portion of this property. In 1825, Mary Lee married Edward Sangster. Edward and Mary’s son, James Sangster, was a Fairfax County judge, and served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. By 1880, James Sangster, along with his wife and children, had taken up residence with his aunt Betty Lee. When she died in 1881, Betty Lee left land to her nephew James Sangster in her will, in trust for the benefit of his children until they came of age. The property later became known as Sangster Farm. During the 1880s, one of James Sangster’s children, Thomas, was a teacher at the Fairfax School and was also principal of the Jefferson Institute, a Fairfax County public school located in Falls Church. In the 1890s, his brother, Smith Lee Sangster, taught at the Barker’s Crossroads School in the old Lee District. In the 20th century, Smith Lee Sangster and his sister Mary Elizabeth Sangster were postmasters of the Burke Post Office. In 1929, Smith Lee Sangster, who had consolidated Sangster Farm in his name some years prior, sold the property out of the family, but the Sangster family name continues on in the names of Sangster Branch and Sangster Elementary School.

A Brief History of the Sangster Family of Fairfax County
In 1777, Thomas Sangster, a blacksmith and farmer, purchased 356 acres of land from William Ellzey. This property, named Fairview in subsequent deed records, passed to Thomas’ son James Sangster, a Fairfax County sheriff who fought in the War of 1812. Major Sangster and his wife Priscilla Ford Sangster are buried in a small family cemetery located along Chapel Road in Fairfax County on land that was once part of Fairview.

Around 1825, Edward Sangster, a son of James Sangster and Priscilla Ford, married Mary Kendall Lee, a daughter of Hancock Lee and Sinah Ellen Chichester. Mary Kendall Lee Sangster inherited land in Fairfax County close to what would become known as Sangster Branch. It is unclear if Edward and Mary ever occupied the property. Land records research indicates that this land was sold to Alfred Moss prior to the American Civil War.

During that war, three of Edward and Mary Sangster’s sons, James, Thomas Randolph, and John Hancock Lee Sangster, fought in the Confederate Army. Only James survived.

James Sangster (1832-1906) was a postmaster and a slaveholder at the time of the Civil War. During the war, James Sangster worked in the Confederate Treasury Department. He served as a private in the 3rd Regiment, Virginia Infantry, Local Defense, Company K. Company K was formed in September 1864, and the soldiers were primarily assigned to guard duty in Richmond. James Sangster is said to have assisted with evacuating the gold and silver from the Confederate Treasury as the Union Army advanced on Richmond.

Thomas Randolph Sangster (c.1835-1861), a farmer, served as a private in the 17th Virginia Infantry. He was killed early in the war in the fighting at Blackburn’s Ford.

John Hancock Lee Sangster (c.1838-1862), an attorney, enlisted as a private and was later promoted to corporal in the 17th Virginia Infantry. He died from wounds received at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

After the war, James Sangster returned to Fairfax County where he made a living as a farmer, an attorney, and as a judge on the Fairfax County Circuit Court. James Sangster was born on January 14, 1832 and died on April 27, 1906. He was buried at Lee Chapel Cemetery in Fairfax County, Virginia. James Sangster married Elizabeth Frances “Bettie” Smith of Brunswick, Virginia, on June 22, 1854 at Randolph Macon College, Mecklenburg County, Virginia. The couple had eleven children, only five of whom were still living in 1900.

When she died in 1881, James Sangster’s aunt Elizabeth “Betty / Betsy” Lee left her land in Fairfax County to her nephew James Sangster in trust for the benefit of his children until they came of age. Sangster Branch flows through this property, which, by 1909, had become known as Sangster Farm. James Sangster’s surviving children, who took legal possession of this land around 1896 when the youngest child came of age, were:

George Edward Sangster (1858-1910)
Thomas Randolph Sangster (1861-1899)
Mary Elizabeth “Bessie” Sangster (1865-1925)
John James “Jack” Sangster (1868-1927)
Smith Lee Sangster (1871-1931)
Charles Maclin Sangster (1875-1942)

Newspaper articles indicate that by the early 20th century James Sangster and several of his children were residing near the village of Burke Station. In 1929, one of the elder children, Smith Lee Sangster, who had consolidated the property in his name a decade earlier, sold Sangster Farm out of the family, but the creek Sangster Branch retained the Sangster family name.