In 1650, William Fitzhugh purchased over 21,000 acres of land in Northern Virginia and called it the Ravensworth tract. It pretty much covered Newington, Springfield, Burke, Falls Church, Fairfax and Annandale. Over the generations, the land was split. In the northern part during the 1700s, three main plantations were eventually built. One, Ravensworth, was outside the Beltway just south of Braddock Road. A second, Oak Hill, still exists off Wakefield Chapel road.
The third plantation, Ossian Hall, was built in approximately 1783 by Nicholas Fitzhugh. The house was sited at what is now the intersection of Rosslyn Road and Royston, two blocks east of here. It looked south across the fields towards Braddock road. Access to the house was off Ravensworth Road on a drive roughly corresponding to Newcastle Drive- part of the Bristow sub-division. Even today, trees exist that lined that entrance drive long before it became a sub-division. One of those trees was in my backyard growing up!
The field at this cache site was never developed. It is a cemetery but with no grave markers. Fairfax registries call it the Stuart/Custis cemetery. Fitzhugh moved out to Alexandria by 1803 and David Stuart bought it. A friend of George Washington and one of the three main planners of Washington DC, he married Eleanor Custis (widow of the son of Martha Washington) and held it until 1838.
By the start of the Civil war, it eventually lay in the hands of Francis Asbury Dickins. By 1861, the Ossian Hall plantation had 559 acres (think .9 miles by .9 miles). The Dickens had 3 slave hands and raised sheep as well as grains, corn and vegetables. In October of that year, Dickens was arrested for the first of an eventual four times during the war. Tough being a Southern Sympathizer behind the Union lines during the war!! During the Civil War, Ossian Hall was within U.S. army lines, but the Dickins family were southern sympathizers. They ultimately left home to spend the final days of the war behind Confederate lines.
After the Civil War, Francis Asbury Dickins returned to Ossian Hall and reopened his Washington law office.
Ossian Hall was a large 2-story frame house with dormers built in the Georgian style. It featured a five-bay (opening) facade with a central hallway. It was an imposing structure with a small, one-story wing that led to a 1-story portion of the house. The interior was elegantly designed with beautifully hand-carved woodwork and mantels. The large parlor featured an exquisitely carved chair rail and mantel and over mantel.
The land eventually fell to Senator Joseph L. Bristow of Kansas from 1918-1944. Senator Bristow introduced lumbering as well as farming to Ossian Hall. Bristow, wrote the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators) and championed Women’s Suffrage.
By 1953, the house had fallen into disrepair and was burned as a training exercise by the new Annandale Volunteer Fire Department. Ossian Hall remains on their crest today. The house featured a two-story portico with a Chippendale-style roof balustrade, recalling George Washington’s Mount Vernon.