The Reid House

Owned by the Reid family, this was also historically known as the Garden Ridge Farm.


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

While researching the Southern Claims files, the Alexandria Gazette newspapers and Anne Frobel's diary I found some interesting information about William S. Reid, who owned a farmhouse that still exists today across from Mark Twain Middle School, on Franconia Road.

William S. Reid died during the War Between the States on February 1, 1864, in the forty-fifth year of his age. He left his wife Statia and six children. The farm contained one hundred and forty-five acres and was described as situated on the road leading from Telegraph Road to Annandale, which was located about three and a half miles from the City of Alexandria. The Reid family would eventually perish from this earth, but the history of their farm still lives on.

According to the Alexandria Gazette Captain James C. Kincheloe, a guerilla chieftain of the Chincapin Rangers and later a raider of Mosby's Command, who lived in Clifton Station wrote an interesting story about a rendezvous at the Reid farm. Captain Kincheloe wrote that while he was operating behind the Union lines, he met at William Reid's house a Miss Elizabeth Frobel, the sister of Anne Frobel, who kept a diary during the war. Miss Frobel had with her a pair of gold spurs that friends and admirers from Prince Georges County, Maryland had made for General Robert E. Lee. The gold spurs were put in Captain Kincheloe's care and he was requested to send them through the Confederate lines. However, there is no documentation if General Lee ever received these gold spurs from his admirers.

After the war the Reid family claimed that the Union Army took possession of the farm in the spring and summer of 1865. According to Anne Frobel, Rose Hill was literally covered with Sherman's army with such an immense number of splendid horses and mules. Statis Reid claimed that the Union Army was encamped on the farm and that the beef cattle pastured on the farm and fed on the corn. She also stated that she saw the Union soldiers taking the rails from the farm and heard them cutting the timber.

William Dove, age forty, also a farmer testified, "In the spring of 1865 after the surrender at Richmond I agreed with Mrs. Reid to work her farm on shares. I lived on a farm about one mile from her place... in the latter part of May, General Sherman's army came here and part of it camped on her farm... they were there three weeks to a month."

Unfortunately, the records verify that the family did not receive any compensation from the Federal government for their claim.

In an interview with descendants from the Reid family they described an incident that occurred during the war at the family homestead. Union troopers arrested Mr. Reid after they were riding up the Old Fairfax Road (today's Franconia Road), when they noticed a Southern flag flying from the Reid place. Mr. Reid's son William, then a small boy, had placed the flag on the house. Mr. Reid would be held captive in the Old Capital Prison for six months for the act committed by his son.

Anne Frobel described the incident at the Reid place that verified the family story. Anne wrote that "They searched Mr. Reid's house recently and found a Confederate flag, and then such vile doings never anyone heard of before, they tore the whole house and place up generally. They manacled him and dragged him off to town through all the water and mud holes they could find -- and up and down through every street until he was wearied and worn almost to death, and then put him in prison where they kept him until he was forced to take the oath." We know that Mr. Reid did not survive the war, but we really don't know what he died from either. However, after reading Anne's account of what happened to Mr. Reid, this ordeal didn't exactly prolong his life.

The next time you drive past the Reid house try to envision General Lee's gold spurs and thousands of Union troops camped around the house and a father being manacled for a transgression committed by his own son.