Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park
Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park | |
West Virginia State Park | |
Fairfax Stone
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Country | United States |
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State | West Virginia |
Counties | Grant, Preston, Tucker |
Elevation | 3,169 ft (965.9 m) |
Coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
Area | 4 acres (1.6 ha) |
Established | 1957 [1] |
- Dedicated | October 5, 1957 [1] |
Owner | West Virginia Division of Natural Resources |
Nearest city | Thomas, West Virginia |
Website: West Virginia State Parks & Forests | |
Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park is a West Virginia state park commemorating the Fairfax Stone, a surveyor's marker and boundary stone at the source of the North Branch of the Potomac River in West Virginia. The original stone was placed on October 23, 1746[2] to settle a boundary dispute between Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron and the English Privy Council concerning the Northern Neck of Virginia. It determined the proprietorship and boundaries of a large tract of mostly unsurveyed land in the English colonies of Maryland and Virginia.
Contents
Park
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Features
Fairfax Stone Historical Monument, part of a four-acre West Virginia state park, is six miles north of Thomas, West Virginia. There are no facilities.
Accessibility
Fairfax Stone
History
The exact boundaries of the "Northern Neck Land Grant" (later called the "Fairfax Grant") had been undetermined since it was first contrived in 1649 by the then-exiled King Charles II. John Savage and his survey party had located the site of the source of the North Branch of the Potomac River (the northern boundary of the tract) in 1736, but had made no attempt to establish the western boundaries.[3] A 1746 survey by Colonel Peter Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson's father) and Thomas Lewis resulted in both the placement of the Fairfax Stone as well as the establishment of a line of demarcation known as the "Fairfax Line", extending from the Stone to the south-east and ending at the source of the Rappahannock River,[4] a distance of 77 miles (124 km).[5]
The North Branch of the Potomac River initially heads west from its source at the Fairfax Stone before curving north and then generally flowing east toward Chesapeake Bay. For this reason, the Stone is only a county corner of West Virginia counties rather than part of the state's border with Maryland, an issue that was only resolved when the Supreme Court ruled against Maryland in 1910 in Maryland v. West Virginia, determining that Maryland would only go westward up the Potomac far enough to meet a point where a line north from the Fairfax Stone would cross that branch of the Potomac.[6] Until the ruling, the boundary of Maryland was indeterminate. West Virginia counties—Tucker County and Preston County— share the boundary marked by the Fairfax Stone (West Virginia having seceded from Virginia during the American Civil War).
Fate of the original stone
The original Fairfax Stone, in accordance with common surveying practices of the era[citation needed], was most likely simply a natural, unmarked rock selected from among the outcroppings in the area. Legal boundary disputes between Maryland and Virginia caused the latter to relocate the stone in 1833 after the site had been lost to memory.[7] The stone was still intact in 1859 when one Lieutenant Melcher found it again and reran the "Fairfax Line" on behalf of the two states. The Stone was gone by 1909, however, having been carried away by vandals.[7] There have been six Fairfax Stones, one replacing the next because of weather or graffiti. The current stone is a six-ton rock with a flat face, on which is inlaid a historical inscription of the stone's significance. Next to it is the 1910 stone.[8] The present Fairfax Stone was dedicated on October 5, 1957.[9]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Conley, Phil and Boyd B. Stutler (1966), West Virginia, Yesterday and Today, 4th Edition, Charleston, West Virginia: Education Foundation, Inc., pg 7.
- ↑ Wayland, John (1925), ""Special Note", In: The Fairfax Line: Thomas Lewis's Journal of 1746; Footnotes and index by John Wayland, Newmarket, Virginia: The Henkel Press (1925 publication), pp 86-88.
- ↑ Otis K. Rice and Stephen W. Brown (1993), West Virginia: A History, Second edition; Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, pg 16.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Wayland (1925), Op. cit., pg 88.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Conley, Phil and Boyd B. Stutler (1966), West Virginia, Yesterday and Today, 4th Edition, Charleston, West Virginia: Education Foundation, Inc., pg 24.
External links
- History of the Fairfax Line from surveyhistory.org
- Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1753-1761 from the Maryland State Archives
- "US SCt Deakins Line Stone 33, 1910, Maryland - West Virginia" from waymarking.com
- The Fairfax Stone and West Virginia v. Maryland from The Traveling 219 project.
- Geobox usage tracking for protected area type
- Articles using small message boxes
- Articles with unsourced statements from March 2009
- Fairfax family
- Geography of Maryland
- Geography of West Virginia
- Pre-statehood history of Maryland
- Colonial Virginia
- History of West Virginia
- Landmarks in West Virginia
- State parks of West Virginia
- Protected areas of Grant County, West Virginia
- Protected areas of Preston County, West Virginia
- Protected areas of Tucker County, West Virginia
- Protected areas established in 1957
- Potomac River
- National Register of Historic Places in Grant County, West Virginia
- Monuments and memorials on the National Register of Historic Places in West Virginia
- National Register of Historic Places in Preston County, West Virginia
- Historic surveying landmarks in the United States
- National Register of Historic Places in Tucker County, West Virginia