Historic Farms and Houses, Virginia's Northern Neck

Only a couple of hours south of the Washington, DC, urban sprawl (mess) is a gentle and historic land of farms, forests, and tidal rivers. The western shore of Chesapeake Bay is indented with rivers that separate three peninsulas, locally known as "necks." The Northern Neck is the northernmost of these three peninsulas, while the next two to the south are the Middle Peninsula and the Virginia Peninsula. Northern Neck is bounded by the Potomac River on the north and the Rappahannock River on the south.

The first European to see Northern Neck may have been Captain John Smith. In the winter of 1607–1608, he traveled up the Rappahannock River while a prisoner of the Powhatan tribe. The neck was settled by English settlers in the early 1600s. The land was well-watered and the winters mild compared to New England, leading to prosperous tobacco farms. African slaves were imported to provide labor for the farms. In the 19th century, the land gradually shifted to mixed grain and vegetable farming as well as timber and seafood. Today, vineyards and wine-tasting are a big business.

Although farming persists, the coasts have been developed with vacation (or year-round) homes for wealthy urbanites. I saw clusters of pretentious McMansions on the bluffs overlooking the Rappahannock River. But inland, there is still a feeling of a land that time forgot. Hundred-year-old farm houses, country stores, and small towns look sleepy. It is surprising considering that Washington is only two hours north (or 3 or 4 hours when the traffic is backed up).

Northern Neck, Virginia. Generated from ESRI ArcGIS Online.

My wife and I drove to Farnham, near Warsaw, Virginia, to visit relatives in May of 2018. I explored a bit, and, of course, wish I had more time to check out-of-the way towns and farms. (Click any picture below or the map to enlarge it.)

Farmhouse, Farnham, Virginia

Farmhouse, History Land Highway, Emerton, Virginia

Cottage, History Land Highway, Emerton, Virginia

I was surprised to see a large number of traditional farmhouses abandoned, often being engulfed with vegetation. Where did the former residents go?

Store, Mary Ball Road, Lively, Virginia

Store or house, Mary Ball Road, Lively, Virginia

The little town of Lively looked reasonably prosperous but had a number of old stores and buildings in various stages of abandonment of neglect.

Barber shop, Mary Ball Road, Lancaster, Virginia

Donaldson's Dodson's Garage, Lancaster, Virginia

Resting in peace at the Farnham Garage

The Farnham Garage - this was fun. The owner had a fantastic collection of older European cars and a few examples of Detroit iron. Some were in running condition, other were a bit "rough." He said he had driven all of them to the garage, but that may have been some years ago.

Abandoned silos, History Land Highway at Totuskey Creek, Warsaw, Virginia

Some abandoned silos and the remains of a loading dock are at Totuskey Creek, just east of Warsaw on History Land Highway. More examples of industrial infrastructure are likely tucked away in the woods.

I previously wrote about the country store of Farnham in a 2011 post (please click the link).

These photographs were taken on Fuji Pro400H film, a 20-year-old roll that had been in my freezer. I exposed it in a Rolleiflex 3.5E with 75mm f/3.5 Xenotar lens, with a Leitz polarizing filter on many frames. I used a Sekonic 318B light meter set at EI=320. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi film scanner operated with SilverFast Ai software.

From the Archives: Washington-Hoover Airport, Arlington, Virginia 1941 or 1942

Eastern Airlines DC-2.

The Washington-Hoover Airport served Washington, DC, from the mid-1930s until 1941, when it was closed and replaced by the modern National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport). Hoover was located about where the south parking lot of the Pentagon is situated. Construction of the Pentagon began on on November 8, 1941, dating these photographs a few months earlier.

When I first looked at these negatives, I thought they depicted National Airport. But a friend (a gent in his 80s) from Alexandria, Virginia, was highly certain that this was not National. The Wikipedia web page describes the closure of the older airport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington-Hoover_Airport. That would date my dad's pictures to late-1941, which is possible because I read in one of his 1941 diary entries that he was thinking of buying a 35mm format camera. He bought an American-made Perfex camera, made by the Candid Camera Corporation of Chicago. I assume this roll of film was one of his early tests. The Cameraquest web page describes the Perfex cameras if you are interested.

The film was in terrible condition. Whoever developed it used the brush method, which was described in older photography magazines. No wonder it fell out of favor. My Silverfast Ai scanning software has anti-scratch software, but it could only do so much with these. Still, I am surprised how much detail is visible. The film edge said Kodak Safety Film Plus-X ("Safety" meaning not nitrate-based film, which was unstable and highly flammable).

Unfortunately, there were only 5 frames on this roll with air field photographs. The other frames were rather mundane tourist scenes in Washington (statue of heroic soldier on horse, etc.). This serves as a lesson that as the years pass, scenes or topics that seem ordinary often take on historical importance, or at least interest. But standard tourist sites are rather unchanging unless you include cultural artifacts, such as parked cars or signs.

Framed photograph in the Mayflower Hotel, photographer and date unknown.

The old Washington-Hoover airport was soundly criticized by pilots and almost everyone as being dangerous and hopelessly inadequate as the airport for the nation's capital. The runways were short, a nearby dump that was on fire made plumes of thick smoke, nearby radio antennas were a hazard, and Military Road had to be blocked by guards when planes landed or took off. At one time, there was a swimming pool, which children reached by crossing the runway.

Gravely Point, Virginia, with dredging underway to prepare artificial land for National Airport. From the Historic American Engineering Record, Library of Congress; United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division  digital ID hhh.va1677/photos.368605p. 

Construction of the new National Airport was mired in the standard political and budgetary malarky (nothing has changed in 75 years). There was even controversy about the boundary between Virginia and the District of Columbia. Read the sordid history in the link above. The new National Airport opened just before our entry into World War II. This was fortuitous timing because the world war resulted in a tremendous increase in air traffic into Washington and Virginia. 

From the History of Reagan National Airport:

When it opened, National Airport was considered the “last word” in airports – a concentration of the ultramodern developments in design of buildings, handling of planes, air traffic and field traffic control, field lighting, facilities for public comfort and convenience, and surface vehicle traffic control. 

Well, not quite. Across the ocean, in Berlin, the spectacular Templehof Airport was under construction and almost complete in 1941. Please see my 2016 article on Templehof.

Tom's Farm, Clifton, Virginia

Many years ago, Tom and his family lived in an old farmhouse on Clifton Road, in Clifton, Virginia. The house dates from the late-1800s, but had many additions and renovations.

When Tom moved to Clifton in the 1970s, the countryside was still rural and pastoral. But, by the mid-1980s, the Washington megalopolis urban sprawl was beginning to overtake Clifton, and the rolling hills were bulldozed to build cheesy McMansions and condominiums. Sadly, you will not see many pastures there now. The lower photograph shows two beauties checking each other out.

The house was covered with both aluminum siding and asphalt siding. The asphalt was similar  to roof shingles and was durable and low maintenance because it did not need painting.

Tom had a number of barns and sheds on the property. They were interesting to explore, but some were so overgrown, it was hard to get inside.

There was a lot of old farm equipment on the property, although the land had not been used for agriculture in decades. It was an interesting place. Tom passed away some years ago, and I have not been back to Clifton since then.

All photographs (except the lady with the curious horse) were taken with a Rolleiflex 3.5E twin-lens reflex camera with a Schneider 75mm Xenotar lens using Kodak Panatomic-X film. I developed the film in Agfa Rodinal 1:50. I scanned the negatives but decided they looked a bit cold. Many years ago, I printed the frames optically (meaning with  an enlarger) on Zone VI paper and toned with selenium. The genuine prints fit the mood best; there was something magical when a negative was printed on a traditional high-silver-content printing paper. The toned frames above are scans of the paper prints (scanned on a Umax scanner using SilverFast Ai software).

I sold the Rolleiflex years ago, which was dumb. So, as of April 2016, I have purchased another Rolleiflex 3.5E via eBay. Some Vicksburg, Mississippi, examples with this new Rolleiflex are here.

Railroad Warehouses, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

Fort Belvoir is an expansive U.S. Army base located on the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, about 8 miles southwest of Washington, DC.

The U.S. Army began using the Belvoir peninsula as training area for the Army’s Engineer School in 1915. When the United States entered World War I in April of 1917, the army needed to train and equip tens of thousands of troops in a short period. This led to the development of a semi-permanent cantonment, named Camp A.A. Humphreys (the former Chief of Engineers from 1866-1879). Over 5,000 soldiers and 6,000 civilians cleared, surveyed, and constructed the camp in only 11 months under difficult conditions and heavy snowfall during the severe winter of 1918. At that time, the Belvoir peninsula was largely undeveloped, consisting of forest and some small farms.

Previously, access to the Belvoir Peninsula had been by boat down the Potomac from Washington, but the Army realized this would not be adequate for a major cantonment housing thousands of troops. The unpaved Washington-Richmond Highway (now US 1) was surfaced in concrete in 1918, and army engineers constructed a railway linking Camp Humphreys with the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad. Eventually, tracks led to numerous warehouses, supplying supplies, fuels, and vehicles for over 20,000 troops. The rail link also served to train Army engineer troops whose specialty was building and running railroads.
This is the only historical photograph I could find, showing construction of the rail bed using mules and manual labor (from the WashCycle web page).
Even more unusual, the Army laid over 20 miles of narrow-gauge (2-ft) track on the post. The narrow-gauge rail was valuable in the European war theater, where most local roads were dirt or mud then.

"From March until the end of the war on Nov. 11, 1918, hundreds of soldiers and engineers trained on the little Camp Humphreys railway, learning how to put together track, build railway trestles and run the tiny steam and gas locomotives. Many of these tiny trains accompanied the troops to Europe, where the Americans and their British and French allies used them to help turn the tide, bringing victory in Europe."

"The two-foot-gauge railway at Camp Humphreys also played an important role in moving supplies and workers engaged in construction projects for the rapidly expanding installation."
(Source: www.army.mil).
Now we come to the purpose of this blog. The last Army railway equipment left the base in 1993 and the track was subsequently removed. But many of the warehouses remain in place. In typical Army fashion, the buildings are secured, painted, and well-maintained, and look like they could be put into operation at a moment's notice (except no trains will pull up ever again). You can see the platforms at the right height for unloading boxcars.
I am not sure what was stored in the neat rows of galvanized steel buildings.
The brick warehouses were also in good condition, and I could not tell if they were being used. Notice the clever security grates designed to allow the swing-out windows to open.
The main base is closed to casual visitors, but the 1,200-acre Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge is open to the public. It offers excellent birding opportunities. There were some plans to convert the old rail line to a rails-to-trails bike and running path, but I do not know how the army would manage the security aspects.

I took the warehouse photographs a Sony DSC-W7 digital camera, tripod-mounted. This was a decent-quality early-vintage digital compact camera. But, it did not record the RAW file, and the jpeg compression was too great, leading to odd artifacts. Still, it served me well for six years until it finally developed power problems. The two wetland photographs are from a lower-resolution Canon PowerShot S330.

The Country Store, Farnham, Virginia

Farnham is a small farming town in the tidewater region of Virginia, located on the peninsula between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers. This area has been settled for three centuries, and 1800s farm houses attest to the farming heritage. You still see rich fields of barley and corn.

This is an old country store. A long-time local resident told me Farnham was prosperous in the 1950s and 1960s when a tomato factory was active and hired many local workers. The factory closed and the town fell asleep. The store would have sold gasoline, groceries, and odds and ends to residents in the old days.

But the store has a new life. A lady from the Washington area retired to Farnham and bought the store and the adjacent house. The store is a perfect place for a party!

A Gulf sign from the gas station era.

I remember seeing steel chairs like these at old resorts in New England.

The back shed had the most interesting bits and pieces.


The main room looks great. This a nice way to revive an old building.

All photographs taken with a Fuji F31fd digital camera.

Lee Hall Village, Virginia

During a recent business trip, I came across a handsome depot in Lee Hall,Virginia (near Williamsburg, not in the best of condition but appreciated by a foundation and in process of being restored.

From Wikipedia: "Lee Hall Depot was a railroad station on the Peninsula Extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), which was built through the area of Warwick County in 1881 to reach the new coal export facilities at Newport News on the port of Hampton Roads....Lee Hall Depot became a very busy railroad station after the establishment nearby of Fort Eustis (originally named Camp Abraham Eustis) in 1918, with freight and heavy troop movements."

"Lee Hall Depot (no longer is use) is the only surviving C&O structure of its type on the lower Peninsula. It is the only survivor among five stations which were located in Warwick County..." AMTRAK trains may stop here in the future. I am gratified to see historic buildings like this saved from being torn down. They say so much about how we built this nation and how people lived and worked. How many US troops and prisoners-of-war passed through this depot?

This former service station was across the street from the depot. Hundreds of these simple stations were built as the road system expanded in the 1920s and 1930s. Most are now gone, so it is nice to see this example still standing.

A contemporary Hummer or behemoth SUV would barely fit under this roof. (All photographs taken with a Sony DSC R-1 camera.)