Woodlawn Manor House

Here is information about the home from a nearby historical marker:

Woodlawn:
Originally part of the Mount Vernon estate, Woodlawn was built in 1800-1805. George Washington gave the plantation, as a wedding gift to Eleanor Parke "Nelly" Custis and her husband, Lawrence Lewis, respectively Martha Washington's granddaughter and George Washington's nephew. The two were married at Mount Vernon on 22 Feb. 1799, George Washington's last birthday. Designed by Dr. William Thornton, the first architect of the U.S. Capitol, the crisply detailed, beautifully crafted five-part mansion displays the elegance and refinement so admired in the Federal style. In 1951, Woodlawn became the first historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.


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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:

Woodlawn was built on a site selected by George Washington and on land willed by him to Lawrence Lewis, his nephew, and to Lawrence's wife, Nelly Custis Lewis, Washington's foster granddaughter.

Woodlawn Mansion is of five-part construction -- a central portion with flanking wings and connecting hyphens. Beyond them are a smokehouse and a dairy, linked to the wings with brick walls penetrated by solid wooden doors. The bricks for the mansion were burned on the place, and local Aquia stone trims the exterior. The river facade is noteworthy for its handsome portico with columns, marble floor and double stairway leading to the garden. The main entrances on the east and west facades of the central hall are surmounted by fanlights. The roof of the central block has clipped gables and is pedimented above the east and west entrances. A modillioned cornice is supported by a narrow frieze. The hyphens were raised to one and a half stories in height between 1902 and 1905, at which time the dormers were added. Within, high-ceilinged rooms are enhanced by fine imported mantelpieces of carved marble. The woodwork is handsomely detailed and well-proportioned. The original paint colors and graining on the doors were established after careful research. Many Mount Vernon and Lewis family furnishings and heirlooms are on display.

Woodlawn's guests over the years have included the Marquis de Lafayette of France and Queen Mother Elizabeth of England. Among its residents have been Paul Kester, New York playwright; Senator and Mrs. Oscar Underwood of Alabama; and the Secretary of War and Mrs. Henry H. Woodring. The extensive formal gardens were restored by the Garden Club of Virginia in 1959.

Woodlawn is one of four Fairfax County structures listed by the National Trust as being of national importance.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Clio history project website as written by Sarah Teague:

As part of the sprawling 2,000-acre estate of Mount Vernon, the Woodlawn Plantation boasts 126 acres on its own and was constructed between 1800 and 1805 by U.S. Capitol architect Dr. William Thornton. The location for the estate was handpicked and paid for by George Washington himself as a wedding gift to his nephew, Major Lawrence Lewis and his wife Eleanor “Nelly” Custis Lewis, granddaughter of Martha Washington. The estate includes several historical structures which narrate different times in its history, including a Quaker meeting house and a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The historical estate as well as these newer structures are listed together in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Woodlawn plantation house is a brick structure that blends the Georgian and Federal styles. Dr. William Thornton, a former physcian, was the architect for the property, which was completed in 1805. The Lewises hosted guests and officials from the region and beyond, including the Marquis de Lafayette. The estate included outbuildings in addition to the main manor house, including a dairy, two necessaries, a bower, and quarters for enslaved workers, which would have been close to agricultural fields. The plantation produced wheat, corn, and some tobacco, but was never successful.

At the time of George Washington’s death in 1799, the Mount Vernon estate would be comprised of as nearly as 317 enslaved individuals. While 123 of those slaves were owned by George Washington himself, another 153 individuals had been inherited by Martha Washington. By law, the Washington’s could not emancipate dower or inherited enslaved persons, since they were previously owned by her late husband, Daniel Parke Custis; therefore upon Martha’s death they were divided among her grandchildren.

The 1810 Census notes that 74 enslaved persons lived on the Woodlawn plantation. This number increased over time; Eleanor Custis Lewis and her family were supported by at least 90 enslaved people of African descent.

After Major Lewis’ death in 1839, the family left the Woodlawn Estate where it sat abandoned for many years. Eventually, the property was sold “to Troth-Gillingham, a ship building company based in NJ, owned by Quakers determined to prove to southerners that one could run a successful business and farm without using slave labor.”1 The new Quaker owners established the estate as a “free-labor colony” and offered many opportunities to former enslaved peoples, like schooling and farming.
Eleanor Custis Lewis moved in with her son Lorenzo after the death of her husband Lawrence in 1839. Some enslaved workers and free white people, most likely an overseer family, remained at the Woodlawn plantation. About ten years later, Lorenzo Lewis and his family sold the estate to Quaker settlers for a lumber company and the establishment of small farms to be sold both to free African-Americans and white settlers. Thus the property which had once held nearly a hundred people in bondage passed into an abolitionist community. The plantation manor served as the Quakers' first meeting house.

In 1850, northern Baptist John Mason and his wife Rachel purchased some property from Woodlawn from the Quakers. This purchase included the manor house, and the Masons moved into it. The Quakers constructed a new meetinghouse on their property and the Masons established a Baptist church. With both the Quaker and the Baptist family on the Woodlawn Estate, it became “the nucleus of two abolitionist religious communities.”1

The estate passed through the hands of several owners through the following years. Upon restoration, the Woodlawn Plantation Estate became open to the public as a museum on May 9th, 1952. The Woodlawn Estate has also become synonymous with the Frank Lloyd Wright property, Pope-Leighey House, which was moved onto the property in 1964 upon threat of demolition due to highway expansion.

The plantation is part of the Woodlawn Cultural Landscape Historic District, on the National Register of Historic Places. The district includes several properties.


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The following history was written in 1968 by Mattie B. Cooper, then principal of Woodlawn Elementary School.

Woodlawn School has an interesting history as it dates back to the early settling of the area by the Quakers who believed in their children being educated. The name was logical as Woodlawn Plantation was originally a tract of two thousand acres known as the Dogue River Farm, which Washington left to his niece, Nellie Custis, and Major Lawrence Lewis, who gave the name WOODLAWN to the place. Their son, Lorenz Lewis, sold the property to Chalkley and Joseph Gillingham, Quakers, who were among many Quaker families that moved into the area about 1846.

A large room in the mansion served as a meeting place and, for awhile, it was used also as a school because the Quakers were advocates of the education of every child. This arrangement was not satisfactory and thus they sought a new location. The miller's cottage adjacent to Washington's Grist Mill was chosen as the new school. The roof of the mill could be seen from the front steps of Woodlawn and close beside it the miller's cottage. The miller's cottage, standing serenely on the hill, was put in repairs and became the first school in the area. Emily Reynolds Green, who had recently married at Woodlawn Mansion, became the first school Mistress. Thus Woodlawn School came into being.

James Charles Robinson stated "interesting experiences between September 1847-1849 with the other children" attended school in a small schoolhouse near Washington's old stone mill. The memory of those school days remains as a part of me. Here I learned to write and first studied geography and arithmetic, prospering under the patient efforts of Emily Reynolds. Even so quiet a school mistress had not learned to rule without a rod at that date and many times resorted to it to enforce order."

The Quakers continued to keep the school open even though they shifted the location to Gray's Hill Mansion, where Anna S. Wright taught, and on to the Quaker's Meeting House, which is still standing at Fort Belvoir. Seeing the need for a public school in the area, E. E. Mason and Courtland Lukens each granted to the Trustees of the Woodlawn School, on October 22, 1869, property for and in consideration of the sum of one dollar, land adjoining that of each other and containing one half acre strick measure. This property was situated on the Accotink Turnpike opposite old Haddon Hall. The name of this road was changed later to Richmond Highway.