The Belmont House

Significance: At Belmont Bay stands what is left of the home of two successive Edward Washingtons. It is doubtless one of the oldest structures in Fairfax County. Reportedly the original houses contained five rooms with cellar and is believed to have been built by Catesby Cocke about 1730 when the first Prince William Courthouse was established on the Occoquan. Cocke served as clerk for Stafford, Prince William counties until 1746. About 1866, Belmont was acquired by the Haislips and their family annals record how most of the early home was torn down and replaced by a comfortable frame building.


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Here follows an excerpt from the 1970 Fairfax County Master Inventory of Historic Sites which contained entries from the Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory:

Belmont:
Overlooking Belmont Bay, the remains of what probably was once Belmont stand on a ridge of land on Mason Neck. Belmont was built about 1730, by Catesby Cocke who, as new smaller counties were formed from old larger ones, was successively Clerk of the Court of Stafford, Prince William, and Fairfax Counties. Belmont's location is indicated on Robert Brooke's 1737 map of the area. This remaining wing is probably one of the oldest structures in Fairfax County.

The remaining structure appears to have been a dependency or outbuilding, according to architectural historians Worth Bailey, Russell Jones, and Blaine Cliver and shows evidence of early eighteenth century construction. The bricks are hand molded. The foundation is almost all headers, with Flemish bond above the drip course on the front and English bond on the sides and back. The brick chimney stands several inches free of the wooden gable-end of the off-center door is set into the other gable-end. Most openings show evidence of having been altered. Rough-hewn wooden lintels surmount most of the windows and doors.

According to Fairfax Harrison, "Landmarks of Old Prince William," the first meetings of newly-organized Fairfax County may have been held here in 1742. Descriptions of the 1,000-acre estate and its buildings were given in an advertisement for sale in the "Maryland Gazette" of August 1, 1765.

After several transfers of ownership by deed and will, the Haislip family acquired the property about 1866. According to family records, most of the early structure was demolished and replaced with a frame building which was demolished in 1959. "The Rambler," Washington Star, September 19, 1920, shows a photo of the L-shaped frame and brick structure. The home is currently owned by Benjamin S. Hedrick.


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

The first owner of the land directly connected with Belmont, and the likely builder, was Thomas Simpson, a carpenter. A wing of the present house is believed to be the oldest house in Fairfax County. Early records indicate that the Belmont house was constructed prior to 1727.

In 1828, the Belmont house was sold at auction and passed through a few brief ownerships until it was acquired by the Gillinghams, who were among the Quaker families that had exited from New Jersey to move to the Mount Vernon-Mason Neck area in 1846. These families remained staunch Unionists during the Civil War in spite of the strong Confederate sentiments of the vast majority of their neighbors. In 1866, Belmont was purchased by John Haislip, and the property remained in the Haislip family for nearly a hundred years.

JOHN AND JAMES HAISLIP'S ARREST FOR DISLOYALTY TO THE UNION.
On January 14, 1862, John and James Haislip were arrested for disloyalty to the Union by order of Brigadier General Heintzelman. John Haislip issued a statement that day in the Provost-Marshall's Office at Fort Lyon:

"I live on Mason's Neck, -- am neutral or should be ousted by southern troops -- southern pickets make signals by lights -- Capt. Hennigen's men do not act as scouts -- Texas Rangers do -- I never gave any information to southern troops -- never was inside their lines. Never aided rebels... nor would I have let them take my team -- my boy carried two citizens across to rebel pickets in early June, don't think he carried others, think they paid him five or six dollars... don't remember carrying anyone towards Elzeys in November... my memory is very poor."

The next day, John Haislip issued another statement in the Provost-Marshall's Office:

"Age fifty, born near Alexandria within sixteen miles of where he lives. Is a farmer and transports wood by boat. Arrested the night before last. Has wife and nine children, five sons, four daughters. Has six hundred fifty acres, valued at eight dollars per acre. Has two slaves, a woman and child, also two old colored women no account -- they belong to Major Stoddert, Charles County, Maryland -- Stoddert was the Administrator of Vansant. He pays to keep me on -- he gave me the one to pay for keeping the other. I have remained at home all the while since this trouble began -- situated between the two lines -- was only inside the Confederate pickets once when going to Occoquan in the latter part of July... the other side have had oats from me once or twice -- three hundred bushels last spring and one hundred fifty bushels this fall... never slept a soldier at my house... my oldest son is with me seventeen years old... Union troops or scouts have never been in my neighborhood until since Christmas... I was arrested Monday last about one a.m. -- was taken to Potter's house (on Potter's hill), headquarters of some Colonel... in the afternoon was taken to Alexandria. Never knew a Thomas Adrian. News came to me from Richmond by old man Joseph Plaskett, who had been a prisoner and released that I was reported on. I heard some rumor that soldiers were killed in the vicinity of Henry Bayliss -- I am three or four miles below there to the south. I know a Captain Hannigan... is raising a company through our section. Lives five miles from Occoquan. The Texans are the ones who are carrying off the free Negroes... I heard they took them to Dumfries."

His statement didn't change the opinions of the Union officers in charge and they were both committed to the Old Capitol Prison. They remained confined in the Old Capitol Prison until February 22, 1862, when they signed their paroles, releasing them from prison, but restricting them from leaving the District.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax Genealogical Society website:

BELMONT CEMETERY (OR CEMETERIES)
10913 Belmont Boulevard.
Mason Neck, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

“Belmont” was built about 1730 by Catesby Cocke, according to a 1971 Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory. The home stood on a ridge overlooking Belmont Bay, east of Massey Creek and northwest of Kane’s Creek (then Baxter’s Creek), in an area now called Belmont Park Estates. The 1971 buildings surveyor located the ruins of what appeared to be a wing of Belmont at 10913 Belmont Boulevard. She described it as “probably one of the oldest structures in Fairfax County.” A dependency or outbuilding was also still standing at the site at that time.

Catesby Cocke, according to the buildings survey, served as Clerk of the Court for Stafford, Prince William and Fairfax Counties, as each county was successively organized. According to Fairfax Harrison in Landmarks of Old Prince William, the earliest meetings of the new County of Fairfax may have been held at Belmont in 1742. That same year Edward Washington purchased Belmont from Catesby Cocke, according to Washington and His Neighbors by Charles W. Stetson.

Belmont eventually became the home of the Plaskett family. Susan Annie Plaskett described her family’s emigration from England to America in Memories of a Plain Family, 1836-1936. The Plasketts arrived in Philadelphia on Easter Sunday, 27 March 1853, according to this account, and stayed near Moorestown, New Jersey for a year. The family heard of a farm for sale in Virginia, so Susan Plaskett’s father, then only seventeen years old, was dispatched to Virginia to look the property over. She describes her father’s impressions:

The farm had been neglected so long and was in such a run down condition, with fences gone and fields overgrown, presenting such a desolate picture in comparison with the trim well-kept farms of England, that my father wrote to his father not to come. However, they had started before the letter arrived. My father, in the meantime was staying in the home of Mr. John Haislip, on an adjoining farm.

Under my grandfather’s management and with the help of his large family of boys, Belmont soon took on a different aspect, and became a flourishing farm. . . .

The Plaskett family lived at Belmont until after the Civil War. The youngest child, Christopher, was born there, and two little boys, Wilfred and Daniel, died and were buried there. My grandfather’s mother, also died there in 1860, in her eightieth year. . . .

Another family associated with Belmont is the Haislip family which came into ownership of Belmont in 1866, according to the buildings survey. Haislip family records report that most of the original structure was torn down and replaced with a frame building which was then demolished in 1959. Brian Conley, Information Specialist in the Virginia Room of the Fairfax City Regional Library, reports that one wing of the original house has been incorporated into a modern house which stands at 10913 Belmont Boulevard.

Mr. Conley reports that the Haislip Family Cemetery is located at 10612 Belmont Boulevard. When he visited the site in 1990, he found the cemetery in the woods about one-quarter of a mile west of the barn. He estimated that there are about fifteen unmarked burials in the cemetery, and noted two bases for gravestones and “a number of fieldstone markers” at the neglected site. According to Mr. Conley, several years ago two Haislip family gravestones were found on Mason Neck. Since it was not known where the burials associated with these markers were, the gravestones were erected in Pohick Cemetery (q.v.). The names on the markers are Henry Haislip, son of James and Abigail Haislip, and Abigail Haislip, relict of James Haislip, daughter of H. and E. B. Brawner. These gravestones still stand at Pohick; please see index.

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books