George Mason

Gunston Hall is an 18th-century Georgian mansion near the Potomac River in Mason Neck, Virginia, United States. Built between 1755 and 1759 as the main residence and headquarters of a 5,500-acre (22 km2) plantation, the house was the home of the United States Founding Father George Mason. The home is located not far from George Washington's home.The interior of the house and its design was mostly the work of William Buckland, a carpenter/joiner and indentured servant from England. Buckland later went on to design several notable buildings in Virginia and Maryland. Both he and William Bernard Sears, another indentured servant, are believed to have created the ornate woodwork and interior carving. Gunston's interior design combines elements of rococo, chinoiserie, and Gothic styles, an unusual contrast to the tendency for simple decoration in Virginia at this time. Although chinoiserie was popular in Britain, Gunston Hall is the only house known to have had this decoration in colonial America.In 1792, Thomas Jefferson visited Gunston Hall for the last time, attending George Mason's death bed. After Mason's death, the house remained in use as a private residence for many years. In 1868, it was purchased by noted abolitionist and civil war Colonel Edward Daniels. It is now a museum owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and open to the public. The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA) operates the museum as a joint effort with the Commonwealth of Virginia led by a Board of Regents selected by the NSCDA. The home and grounds were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 for their association with Mason.

Pohick Bay Regional Park is a regional park on Pohick Bay of the Potomac River, in Fairfax County, northern Virginia.

Mason Neck is a peninsula jutting into the Potomac River to the south of Washington, D.C., in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is surrounded by Belmont Bay to the west, the Potomac River to the south and east, Gunston Cove to the northeast, and Pohick Bay to the north-northeast. The census-designated place (CDP) of Mason Neck forms the southernmost section of Fairfax County, in northern Virginia, and comprises an area of 20.0 square miles (51.8 km2), two-thirds of which is preserved as parkland by regional, state, and national authorities. The population of the Mason Neck CDP was 2,005 as of the 2010 census.

Gunston Cove is an inlet of the Potomac River, at the confluence of Accotink Creek and Pohick Creek in Northern Virginia. The Cove forms the northern boundary of Mason Neck, once home to the revolutionary hero George Mason and now site of several regional parks and the Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge. George Mason University's notable multi-decadal study of water quality and aquatic habitat in Gunston Cove and the adjacent Potomac River has illustrated how a tidal freshwater ecosystem can gradually recover from human-induced eutrophication following management of upstream nutrient pollution.

Mason Neck State Park is located in Fairfax County, Virginia. The park is on a peninsula formed by Pohick Bay on the north, Belmont Bay on the south and the Potomac River to the east. The park has an area of 1,814 acres (7.34 km2) and is home to bald eagles, great blue herons, ospreys, and many other types of wildlife. The park also contains white-tailed deer and many species of lichen. Mason Neck State Park is one of the best locations to view bald eagles in northern Virginia. Sightings are most common in the mornings and evenings. The park is day-use only. Park hours are 8 a.m. to dusk. The park administration office is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., closed state holidays. Mason Neck State Park has cultural significance with two sites on the state and National Register of Historic Places and approximately thirty other identified archaeological sites. The Taft archaeological site was listed in 2004 and the Lexington site was listed in 2013.

Pohick Creek is a 14.0-mile-long (22.5 km) tributary stream of the Potomac River in Fairfax County in the U.S. state of Virginia. It takes its name from the Pohick Native American tribe once prevalent in the area. Pohick Creek forms in the vicinity of Burke and flows southeast past the western edge of Fort Belvoir to empty into the tidal Pohick Bay, which itself empties, along with Accotink Bay, into Gunston Cove, an embayment of the tidal Potomac River. Pohick Creek is a popular stream for whitewater kayaking, rafting, and paddling, providing Class II and III rapids along a 5.5-mile (8.9 km) stretch between Hooes Road (Virginia Secondary Route 636) and the Richmond Highway (U.S. Route 1) at Lorton. Several tributaries of the Pohick Creek are impounded by dams constructed under the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act to prevent soil erosion and flooding. Originally eight dams were planned, but from 1970 to 1985, only six were actually built. Lake Braddock (Pohick #7) was the first dam built in 1970, and impounds the Pohick Creek in Burke. Huntsman Lake (Pohick #8) was built in 1973, and impounds the Middle Run in Springfield. Lake Royal (Pohick #4) was completed in 1977, and impounds the Rabbit Branch in Burke above its confluence with the Sideburn Branch, where it forms Pohick Creek. Lake Barton (Pohick #2) completed in 1978, impounds a tributary of the Sideburn Branch in Burke. Woodglen Lake (Pohick #3), which impounds the Sideburn Branch in Fairfax, was completed in 1981. Lake Mercer (Pohick #1) became in 1985 the final dam completed, impounding the South Run in Springfield.

Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge is a nature preserve on the grounds of Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Several other parks, including Mason Neck State Park, Pohick Bay Regional Park, and the Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge are located nearby. The refuge was established in 1979 to protect sensitive wetlands and wildlife habitats associated with Accotink Bay and to provide opportunities for environmental education and low-intensity recreation. The refuge offers more than eight miles of hiking trails, including a short paved trail for handicapped access. Species native to the preserve include: Foxes Deer American toads Raccoons Black rat snakes Eastern box turtles Various millipedes, including Narceus americanus Various salamanders, including spotted salamanders and red back salamanders Various spiders, including Lycosa aspersaThe Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge Environmental Education Center is located at the entrance to the refuge. The center features exhibits, videos and trail guides about the refuge and offers nature education programs.A small parking area with space for six cars (two reserved for handicapped) is located just outside the Tulley Gate entrance off Route 1.

Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge of the United States located in Virginia. It is part of the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex. It is on Mason Neck, a peninsula in the Potomac River that forms part of the shoreline of Belmont Bay. The refuge is adjacent to Mason Neck State Park. Established in 1969 and managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, it was the first federal refuge created specifically for the protection of the bald eagle. It is 2,277 acres (9.21 km2) in size, with 4.4 miles (7.1 km) of shoreline. It is covered with oak and hickory forest and it includes the largest freshwater marsh in northern Virginia. Since its founding, the refuge has been renamed for Elizabeth S. Hartwell, a local activist who fought to keep Mason Neck free of development.

Taft Archeological Site No. 029-5411 is a historic archaeological site located at Lorton, Fairfax County, Virginia. The site includes a multi-component, stratified, upland, prehistoric and possibly proto-historic (Dogue), American Indian camp covering a 50x80-meter area and dating to between ca. 2000 B.C. (based on Savannah River point) and A.D. 1560. The site was excavated in three stages in May through August 1987. The site is located in Mason Neck State Park.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

Belmont Bay is a body of water at the mouth of the Occoquan River between Fairfax and Prince William counties, Virginia. The bay covers about 1,500 acres (6.1 km2). The bay adjoins the Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge and Mason Neck State Park on the Fairfax County side and the Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Prince William County. The bay was named for the home, "Belmont," which was built circa 1730 overlooking the bay by Catesby Cocke, who was the clerk of the Prince William County court. Belmont Bay is notable for sightings of bald eagles that nest and feed in the refuges and for the numerous Great Blue Herons. Belmont Bay is also a popular destination for pleasure boats. Summer weekends usually attract 40 to as many as 100 boats to this location. The waterfront community of Belmont Bay is located at the bay.

Humphreys National Forest was established in Virginia by the U.S. Forest Service on April 10, 1925 with 3,184 acres (12.89 km2) from part of the Humphreys Military Reservation, now Fort Belvoir. On April 11, 1928 the executive order for its creation was rescinded and the forest was abolished.

Lexington was an 18th-century plantation on Mason's Neck in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The estate belonged to several generations of the Mason family, and is now part of Mason Neck State Park. Lexington was originally part of the Gunston Hall plantation land tract, held by various members of the Mason family (one of the First Families of Virginia) for generations, and previously by members of the Doeg band of Native Americans. George Mason IV, an active patriot and mentor of his neighbor General (then President) George Washington subdivided his property when his firstborn son George Mason V (1753-1796) reached legal age in 1774 (a year after his mother's death). The house was actually built beginning circa 1784, a year after that somewhat sickly son returned from a European trip taken for health and business reasons, and shortly before the son's marriage to Elizabeth Barnes Hooe, whose father operated the Barnesfield plantation in nearby King George County. Lexington's construction of wood rather than brick or stone like Gunston Hall, may indicate the economic constraints imposed by the American Revolutionary War upon the patriot family. Although they had six children (and documents confirm at least three were born at this plantation house), George Mason V would only acquire title to the plantation upon his father's death in 1792 (when the Fairfax County Circuit Court accepted and transcribed his father's lengthy and codicil-free will written in 1773 and named him the estate's executor) and only survived his father by four years. The name commemorates the Battle of Lexington in Massachusetts.The surrounding plantation was used to grow tobacco (a resource intensive crop which led to soil depletion) and other crops by 1775. It fell into disrepair after the War of 1812, both because of soil depletion, and because George Mason V's son sold the property to his uncle William Mason of Mattawoman plantation in Maryland in 1818 (a year before his wife died and two years before his own death). William Mason had run the plantation during his elder brother George Mason V's European trip before the manor house's construction. Non-family managers had operated the Lexington plantation on behalf of the Mason descendants until they came of age, later on behalf of Mason family members who chose to live elsewhere. George Mason V's will declared that Lexington would become the property of his second son, William Eilbeck Mason (1788-1820), when he came of age, an event which would not occur until 1809, although it also allowed his widow to occupy the property for the rest of her life. In fact, a month after her husband's death, Elizabeth Barnes Mason gave birth to his posthumous third son, Richard Barnes Mason, who would become a career U.S. Army officer and temporary governor of the California territory before his death in 1850. George Mason V's eldest daughter Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Mason (9 March 1785–25 March 1827) married her distant relative Alexander Seymour Hooe, son of Seymour Hooe and Sarah Alexander, at Lexington on 22 April 1802. The following year, the widowed mother remarried, to George Graham, who had been educated alongside George Mason's two youngest sons before attending Columbia University in New York and returning to become a Virginia lawyer as well as operate his family's properties after his father died in 1796. Elizabeth Barnes Mason Graham died in May 1814, shortly before her husband's possibly most important military services assisting in the evacuation of Washington D.C. Their son George Mason Graham, born at Lexington, would like his half-brother fight in the Mexican–American War, as well as become rich operating his family's cotton plantation in Louisiana, before helping to found the educational institution which later became Louisiana State University. Meanwhile, after his wife's death and the war's end, George Graham accepted a job with the War Department in Washington D.C., and would later remarry as well as serve as Commissioner of the General Land Office. William Stuart Mason, eldest son of George Mason IV's son William Mason acquired Lexington plantation circa 1824 and actually lived at Lexington until his death in 1857, but he also experienced financial troubles, so not only did much fall into disrepair, in 1851 a court required land to be sold to his younger brother (yet another) George Mason of Hollin Hall. George Mason of Hollin Hall tried to sell the plantation, but did not do so before his death, so in 1870 it became the property of his son, also named George Mason, on whose watch the wooden structure burned down.When that George Mason (who never had children) died of typhoid fever in Portland, Oregon in 1888, the property, which was becoming overgrown, was inherited by his sister Kora Chase, who sold it in 1903 to James D. Yeomans, a local real estate speculator as well as member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It then changed hands among various real estate investors and companies until 1967, when Wills & Van Metre, Inc. sold it to the Nature Conservancy, which was interested in the property because of two bald eagle nests discovered in 1965. It consolidated various parcels and in 1968 sold them to the Commonwealth of Virginia to become Mason Neck State Park, which opened in 1985.Archeologists investigated the Lexington site beginning around 2006. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013, in part because of its landscape design unearthed during those excavations, which resembles that of Gunston Hall, as well as Marlborough, a now defunct Stafford County plantation once the home of John Mercer, George Mason's relative, guardian during his minority and mentor, and who died in 1768.