Salona, Fairfax County, Virginia Part 4

[56] Ibid., p. 304.

[57] Ibid., p. 305.

[58] Gamble, _Sully_, p. 50.

[59] Lee, _Lee of Virginia_, p. 468.

[60] McGroarty, _Presbyterian Meeting House_, p. 54, footnote.

[61] Letter from Ann Calvert (Stuart) Robinson to Elizabeth Collins Lee, October 19, 1806. Lee Family Papers, Section II, Richard Bland Lee, Virginia Historical Society.

[62] _Alexandria Gazette_, January 8, 1802.

[63] Unsigned, undated note (1977) from Sabine Hall to the author states that these dates are in a family Bible at the hall. No marriage dates were sent, although they had been requested.

[64] Robert Carter Randolph, _The Carter Tree_ (Richmond, Va.: By the author, 1951), omits any mention of offspring of Ann's first marriage but does list William Maffitt, II, as the only child of her second marriage. However, the American Genealogical Research Inst.i.tute, History of the Carter Family_ (Washington, D.C.: 1972) states that four children were born to Charles and Nancy Carter: John Hill who never married; Susan, who married the Rev. Thomas Balch, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church; Mary Walker, who married Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones; and Elizabeth, who married Alfred Carter. Apparently the Carter children, the young Turberville boys, and the Maffitts all lived together as one family after the Maffitt-Carter marriage.

Charles B. Carter was a cousin of Ann's, who owned "Richmond Hill" in Richmond County and "Mount Atlas" in Prince William. His grave is at Mount Atlas and the tombstone bears the dates 1766-1807.

[65] Young William grew up at Salona, received his M.D. from Columbian College, (later part of George Washington University), served in the Army Medical Corps, went to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1841, married Julie Chouteau, descendant of a founder of St. Louis, in 1843, and died there in 1864. It is interesting to note that of the seven members of his college cla.s.s, he is the only one for whom the college does not have a full record.

[66] _Alexandria Gazette_, August 18, 1812.

[67] Allan C. Clark, _Life and Letters of Dolly Madison_, letter from Dolley Madison to her sister Lucy Todd, August 23, 1814.

[68] Ethel Stephens Arnett, _Mrs. James Madison: The Incomparable Dolley_ (Greensboro, N.C., Piedmont Press, 1972), p. 238, 243; Dorothy Payne Todd Madison, _Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, c. 1886), p. 108.

[69] Clark, _Letters_, Madison to Todd, August 23, 1814.

[70] Ibid., August 24, 1814. The portrait was started by Gilbert Stuart and completed by an artist named Winstanley. A footnote on p.

184 quoted from Laura Carter Holloway Langford, _Ladies of the White House_ states:

Half a century later, when the White House was undergoing a renovation, this portrait was sent, with many others subsequently added to this solitary collection, to be cleaned and the frame burnished. The artist found on examination that the canvas had never been cut, since the rusted tacks, time-worn frame, and the size compared with the original picture, was the most conclusive evidence that Mrs. Madison did not cut it out with a carving knife, as many traditions have industrially circulated.

Matilda Lee Love was the daughter of Ludwell Lee of Belmont in Loudoun County, granddaughter of Richard Henry Lee, and niece of Harriotte Lee Turberville Maffitt. Her mother was Flora, sister of Matilda Lee.

According to Mrs. Love's memoirs in the _Lee Chronicle_:

Mr. Madison was a relation of my stepmother, Mrs. Lee, and was always very civil to us, and we dined and stayed at the President's several times. My father never would go there, as he opposed the Madisons to the day of his death ... I inherited from my mother, who was very wealthy, a farm near the little Falls of the Potomac, where we were to reside, and which I named Rokeby, after Scott's poem of that name, as Matilda was the heiress of Rokeby.

[71] Arnett, _Mrs. James Madison_, pp. 243-46; Lee, _Chronicle_, p.

291.

[72] Irving Brant, _James Madison: Commander in Chief, 1812-1836_, pp. 306-8. Brant's error regarding Maffitt's first name has been picked up by Walter Lord, _Dawn's Early Light_, p. 171: "James Madison ... and the rest of the presidential party rode to Salona, the home of the Reverend John Maffitt where Madison now expected to meet his wife," and by Alan Lloyd, _The Scorching of Washington_, p.

170: "Madison crossed the Potomac by ferry-boat, trekking into the adjacent hills toward the emergency rendezvous he had fixed with Carroll: Salona, the home of an ecclesiastical friend named John Maffitt."

When Alexandria historian Jean Elliot called Brant's attention to his error in Maffitt's first name, Brant replied to her on July 12, 1973:

My research cards are all in the Library of Congress, so I have no way of knowing whether I was misled by some earlier writing or went wrong on my own, but the matter of accuracy can be settled by the law of probability. There is no chance whatever that two preachers named John and William Maffitt co-existed in the same little community, at precisely the same time, with abundant evidence of William's existence and none of John's, in the records you cite.

[73] Old Dominion Road (Drive) did not exist until the old trolley tracks were removed in the 20th century. In a letter to Mrs.

Elizabeth Payne, Chairman of the Committee for the Marie Butler Leven Preserve, Brant wrote on March 9, 1972: "I am not certain about the road from Falls Church to Salona, whether it branched off from Kirby Road at the site of the Nelson-Patterson Mill."

[74] Brant, _James Madison_, pp. 307-9.

[75] "The Rambler," _Sunday Star_, August 2, 1914.

[76] Ibid.

[77] Lee, _Chronicle_, p. 291; Arnett, _Mrs. James Madison_, pp.

245-6.

[78] Fairfax County, Virginia, Personal Property Tax Books, 1812-1843. Microfilm, Virginia State Library, Archives Division.

[79] Lee, _Chronicle_, Matilda Lee Love, p. 292.

[80] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Book I, p. 294. The graveyard no longer exists.

[81] Ibid.

[82] Letter from Harriotte Maffitt to George Turberville, July 13, 1819. Copy provided by Henry and Dougla.s.s Mackall from original in possession of George Turberville of Mana.s.sas.

[83] Letter from William C. Woodbridge (director of The Asylum) to the Reverend William Maffitt, September 21, 1820. Copy provided by Henry and Dougla.s.s Mackall from original in possession of George Turberville of Mana.s.sas.

[84] Franklin B. Gillespie, _A Brief History of the Lewinsville Presbyterian Church_, no date.

[85] Presbyterian Church in the United States, Minutes.

[86] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Book N-1, p. 49; Fairfax County, Virginia, Deed Book V-2, p. 85. Trudie Sundberg and John Gott point out in the 1971 _Yearbook_ of the Historical Society of Fairfax County, Vol. 11, p. 5, that the church never received Miss Jones'

four acres. Instead the property reverted to the estate of her mother, Lettice Turberville Jones, and was sold at auction with the rest of Lettice Jones' estate to pay off the creditors of Troilus Lewin Turberville, her brother. The present Lewinsville Presbyterian Church stands on acreage given by the heirs of Dr. Mottrom Ball, who had married Martha Turberville, sister of Troilus and Lettice.

III

SALONA FOR SALE

After William Maffitt's death, his widow must have found life difficult. She had to keep up the farm, care for the slaves, and support her children and stepchildren. There was an outstanding debt on Salona owed to her sister-in-law in Georgetown. William Maffitt had mortgaged the property with Margaret Whann for $6,000 in 1823, and had paid back almost half of the amount due prior to his death.[87]

Ann Maffitt's state of mind was clearly revealed in a letter written by her on July 22, 1828, to Col. George W. Hunter urging him to reconsider his refusal to become administrator of her husband's estate. She pleaded with him: "... I shall send my dear fatherless (and I might almost add) friendless Son to you this morning who will say everything he can to beg you not to desert us in our great time of need...."[88]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Dr. William Maffitt, Jr., Major, U. S. Army. Born November 14, 1811, in Virginia. Died October 7, 1864, St. Louis, Missouri. He was Reverend William Maffitt's only son._]

Apparently her appeal fell on deaf ears, for the court records show that Robert C. Jackson was administrator. Margaret Whann brought a chancery suit against the heirs of Maffitt in 1831 and bought Salona at auction through her agent, Joseph McVean, for $2,650, only partial repayment of the $3,716.54 still due her. Meanwhile, slaves and personal property were sold, and small debts repaid. George W.