Taynton Family Farmhouse

Learn about the history of Beech Tree Farm, the Taynton family, and the Fitzhugh plantation Fontainebleau in this video produced for Fairfax County Public Schools’ cable television channel Red Apple 21:

Beach Tree Elementary School opened in 1968. The school was named for Beech Tree Farm which was then owned by the Taynton family. Mark Taynton was born in 1897. He graduated from the University of California Berkeley and worked as a mining engineer. In 1924 he married Ruth Rebecca Rosenthal. A few years later Mark took a job with the Internal Revenue Service and moved his family to Washington DC. Around 1930 they purchased a farm in Fairfax County naming it Beech Tree Farm after a large beech tree that grew on the property. Beech Tree Farm had been part of a historic plantation owned by the Fitzhugh family. The old plantation house called Fontainebleau was built in 1834 by Mordecai Cook Fitzhugh. The plantation covered some 2,000 acres, had two gristmills, and was worked by over 100 slaves. When the Tayntons bought Beech Tree Farm it was already producing fruits and vegetables for market. The Tayntons also raised pigs, sheep, horses, and a few cows. Mark Anton's daughter Judith and her friends would occasionally ride horses to school and Falls Church hitching them up behind the Jefferson School building for the day. In his spare time Mark Anton was a photographer. Many of his photographs appeared in National Geographic magazine. Ruth Taynton was one of the founders of the Old Dominion Kennel Club and the National Capitol Kennel Club. She started a kennel on the farm raising Karen Scotty's collies and Shelties for show and had 18 champion show dogs at one time. Ruth's first collie Frederika came from Sunnybrook farm which was owned by Eric Knight, author of Lassie. Before the construction of Beech Tree Elementary School the area where the school is located was wooded and had a stream running through it.
Two types of rare plants grew there: Indian pipe and pink and white lady slipper. When the school's playing fields were built, the farms water table abruptly changed. The disturbance killed the farm's large beech tree.
When it was cut down the tree was found to be 650 years old. Later a new tree was planted on the spot of the old one and after they died Mark and Ruth's ashes were scattered there. Today the Taynton farmhouse still stands behind Beech Tree Elementary School. Historic photographs in the school's main office and beech trees out front serve as important reminders of the link between the school and storied Beech Tree Farm.