Wilton Hill House (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where this home once stood. No visible remains exist.


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Here follows a history of Wilton Woods as published on the Fairfax County Public Schools website:

What’s in a Name?
How did Wilton Woods Elementary School get its name? Find out in this video produced for FCPS cable television channel Red Apple 21:

Wilton Woods Center off Franconia road is a Fairfax County Public Schools administrative building. The building originally served as an elementary school. The name Wilton Woods is derived from the name of a historic home called Wilton Hill. John Frobel, a native of Holland, was a musician, piano teacher, and talented gardener. In 1804, he moved to Mount Vernon where he taught music to the nieces and nephews of Bushrod Washington, who inherited the estate from his uncle George Washington in 1799. John Frobel lived with the Washington's until his home, Wilton Hill, was completed in 1809. "The Civil War Diary of Anne Frobel," John's daughter is a compelling account of daily life at Wilton Hill during the war years. During that time, John's daughters Anne and Elizabeth lived alone at Wilton Hill.

"...Summer 1862. Lizzie had a beautiful little lemon tree the very apple of her eye she'd been sending two or three lemons at a time to a poor sick lady who was confined to her bed with a severely wounded arm she'd been shot while walking through the streets of Alexandria by a soldier who was heard to say that he intended to kill a rebel before night. Lizzie looked out the window and saw a soldier in the very act of snatching off the lemons she jumped up and flew out in such a hurry he turned and made a dash at her with his bayonet saying he would run her through she stopped short and looked at him and said run me through a few death I never was afraid of a coward and none but a coward would attack a lady in that way..."

Anne and Elizabeth eked out a living during the war years as soldiers raided their chicken coops, killed

their cows, stole their horses, and wiped out their gardens. After Anne's death, Wilton Hill sat abandoned for many years until it was sold at auction in 1910. During the 1950's, Fairfax County experienced a wave of rapid population growth. New schools were desperately needed. Wilton Woods Elementary School was built near the site of the Frobel's home.


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

Approximately in this area was the location of Wilton Hill, the home of Anne and Elizabeth Frobel and their brother Lieutenant Colonel Bushrod W. Frobel. Before the war Bushrod participated in the Paraguay expedition in 1855. Initially, Bushrod served as Captain in the Fifth Alabama Artillery and commanded a battery at Cockpit Point near Dumfries between December 1861 to March 1862. He would eventually attain the rank of Lieutenant Colonel as a field artillery officer under Major General A.P. Hill's Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. Lieutenant Colonel Frobel also laid out fortifications around Atlanta, Georgia. Lieutenant-Colonel Frobel survived the war and lived in Georgia after the conflict.

ANNE FROBEL'S GIFT.
In the spring of 1864, in a nearby neighbor's house, Anne Frobel met with Captain James Kincheloe, and five or six of his men of the Chincapin Rangers. This was the first time Anne had met or even seen Confederate soldiers during the entire conflict because Wilton Hill had been under Union occupation since May 24, 1861 when the Union Army marched into Alexandria. To commemorate the occasion, Captain Kincheloe presented Anne Frobel a button from his Confederate uniform.