Broad Run Farms

 About Broad Run Farms

If a request was made today to subdivide the land on which Broad Run Farms stands, an archeological survey would be required before construction could begin. It would be a fruitful investigation for sure, because Broad Run Farms definitely has a colorful past.

Prehistoric visitors

This area has a layer of fractured shale underground, a substrata that is a wonderful repository for fossilized dinosaur footprints and bones.

First Residents

Native Americans roamed and settled in Broad Run Farms for many years.

Archeological evidence indicates that they were here as early as 6500 B.C. It appears that the first visitors were hunting parties, and it is common to turn up arrowheads while gardening in our community. Closer to the time of European colonization, there were agricultural settlements along the banks of the Potomac. Floods occurred every three to four years during this time, and the tribal residents used this to their advantage, as a way to fertilize their fields. The Algonquins were the primary tribe living here when the Europeans arrived. Some Iroquois groups may have passed through the area, too, while traveling between their summer and winter hunting grounds.

The First Europeans

Broad Run Farms was named by the first known Europeans to visit this area. On April 17 , 1699, Burr Harrison and Giles Vandercastle, deputized ambassadors to the Piscataway Indians who lived near Point of Rocks wrote in their journal:

“About seven or eight miles above sugar land, we came to a broad Branch of about 50 or 60 yards wide: a still or small streeme; it took oure hourses up to the Belleys, very good going in and out.”

Historians think that this description was written about what is the present Route 7 crossing. Even then, it was a natural break in the river bluff.

The First owners

Exactly who was the first European to live on the land of Broad Run Farms is a  subject of historical controversy. On paper, at least, King Charles II gave a patent for which included ours to his loyal supporters in 1649. Originally, there were seven grantees, but by much intrigue, the Culpepper and Fairfax clans in 1690, the land was owned jointly with the Fairfax family. Both families appointed agents to survey and lease the land in their domain.

John Pope- The first European resident

Until recently, it was thought that the first lessee and therefore the first resident was Thomas Lee. His holdings stretched from Goose Creek to the Sugarlands, and included Goose Creek to the Sugarlands, and included Seldon's Island (Wilson C.V. Seldon bought the island that now bears his name in 1825 from Ludwell Lee, a descendent of Thomas Lee). However, Carl MacIntyre, a local amateur historian, discovered a map and deed in the early 1980s indicating that first ownership actually went to a different man, John Pope, in 1709. The grant to Pope came eight days after the famous grant to captain Daniel

McCarty, and extended from Broad Run to the boundaries of McCarty's tract near Sugarland Run. Pope's grant given on February l0th, was the earliest patch of land located wholly in today's Loudoun County. The Southern part of Broad Run Farms, according to MacIntyre, was originally granted to Robert Carter, Jr. in 1729. Like the rest of eastern Loudoun County during this period, corn and tobacco were probably grown here, with slaves working the land.

The Broad Run Bridge

The route 7 bridge over Broad Run has a long and colorful history, dating from the 1750's. The crossing at this location was described as “too deep for ford too narrow for ferry" by Eugene Scheel in his history of the crossing. Since travel was heavy during this time, a typical early Virginia bridge was erected composed of sleepers and rafters. The sleepers were three or four logs linking each bank, and supporting the rafters, boards that were laid at right angles to the sleepers - usually without nails. If the bridge was flooded and needed its rafters adjusted or replaced, it was up to the next traveler who wished to cross to repair the bridge. George Washington was probably one of those impromptu repairman since it is known that he used the bridge in 1753 and 1754.

The Broad Run Bridge was one of the earliest county-maintained byways. As early as 1771, minutes from Loudoun government meetings indicate that about $500 had to be allocated to reconstruction of the bridge "at the usual place." In 1809, the bridge was part of the $41,450 state appropriation to build the twenty mile Leesburg Turnpike from Leesburg to Drainesville. This sum, incidentally, was the largest state road appropriation to date. The stone Broad Run Bridge and Tollhouse were probably completed by 1820.

Levi Whaley founded a settlement called Broad Run around the bridge site about

1810, when he bought 51 acres on "both sides of the turnpike and along Broad

Run." He purchased the land from Henry B. Lee, the last of the area's "Virginia Lees." There was a grist mill, a saw mill and post office at this site.

The Making of John Mosby

During the mid-1800s, most of Broad Run Farms was a 755-acre farm owned by John Miskel. The farm, with an historical marker at the road side, stands near the intersection of Broad Run Drive and Dairy Lane. On March 31, 1863, a Civil War Battle took place on Miskel's Farm that began the rise to fame of the legendary John Singleton Mosby, who was at that time a captain in the Confederate Army.

The night before the battle, Mosby and his men were encamped at the Miskel farm. Mosby decided not to post guards at the Pike that night, because he knew that the Union camp was 15 miles away. Since they planned to leave the next morning, he figured his unit would be gone by the time Union troops reached the area. That night, though, an informer reported Mosby's whereabouts to the Union Army. At daybreak, the First

Vermont Cavalry charged into the Civil Miskel barnyard. The Union troops were so confident that they closed the farm gates behind themselves to prevent Confederate escape. Although the cavalry numbered 150 to Mosby's 70, the rebels had repeating pistols and carbines, firepower superior to the sabers carried by the Union Cavalry. The Yankees found themselves retreating very quickly after starting the battle. Having closed the gates, though, the retreat turned into a route for the Confederates. Mosy concluded the battle by chasing the cavalry down Leesburg Pike to Dranesville, a distance of five miles, taking 83 prisoners and 95 horses before pulling back. The victory earned Mosby a promotion to Major for his gallantry. An 1895 engraving made by artist James Taylor depicts this battle, and is included in an 1896 book, Mosby's Rangers, by James Williamson.

Post-war-A growing area

Sam Jenkins, a nephew of Miskel's, ran the farm in the latter half of the 1800's. In 1880, Isaac Van Deventer bought both the Broad Run settlement and the Miskel Farm.

During the late 1870's, Broad Run got its first public school. The building used to stand where the first residence is on the east side of Lakeside Drive. It was a one room frame school that closed in 1922. Ten years later the building was moved about a mile south to house farmhands working on what was then Sterling Farm. Until the 1920's, Broad Run was also known as the best site for winter ice because its depth was just right to hack out the needed three-foot ice blocks.

The 2Oth Century

Prohibition

From World War I through the 1930's, Broad Run Farms was known as a hotbed of bootleg whiskey manufacturing. The stone house near the Broad Run crossing and Van Deventer's Island were major stills. Long time residents tell us that there were many smaller operations scattered throughout the Farms area. After Prohibition, the Toll House became merely a sightseers' attraction for its gardens and view of the 'sturdy bridge side."

The Farms Becomes a neighborhood

The Broad Run Farms of today began in 1950 when Robert Barns Young, a U .S. Senate Lawyer, purchased the 706-acre Miskel Farm. For a year, he continued to operate it as a dairy farm, but then decided to subdivide it, and named it Broad Run Farms. It was the first subdivision to meet modern standards in the county. Unlike Loudon's Fairview and Ridgeview subdivisions established earlier, the Broad Run Farms plots were wide enough that buyers did not need to purchase two adjacent lots to have enough space to build a reasonably sized house. Young was required to put in 40-foot-wide paved roads, and his decisions to have common access to the Potomac and Broad Run was a very innovative feature for a neighborhood at the time.

With prices of $1,200 for the one-half to one acre plots, and $10,000 for the ten acre riverside plots, they sold quickly. By 1958, all of the plots were sold, some by Young himself, who would park a trailer alongside Route 7 and bring in passers-by, several of whom ended up as residents

A Prominent Neighborhood

The first resident of Broad Run Farms was General William Lafayette Fagg, who moved in May of 1952. General Fagg was at one time the Provost Marshall of Air Force. Another famous resident was Senator Everett Dickerson. He and his wife moved into 'Heart's Desire,' a home on the Potomac along Young's Cliff Road, during the late 1950's. In 1959, while a resident, he became Minority Leader of the Senate. For awhile, our community considered the marigold its official flower Dirksen, an avid horticulturist, raised large numbers of this at his residence. In fact, he began his plantings even before his house was built by coming out on weekends and living in a specially exempted trailer.

Galilee United Methodist Church

The only non-residential building ever built in Broad Run Farms is, of course, the Galilee United Methodist Church. The architecture of the original church building, built in 1965, reflects the fact that it is located right next to the lake. The strong relationship between the lake and the church was cemented when the lake acquired the name Lake Galilee, and the fourteen crests of the church's wavy roofline were set up to suggest a water's surface. This lake, incidentally, did not exist when Young first arrived. Although a swampy area, several small homes were built there. In 1952, the lake was created by running in a six inch sanitary sewer line. Interestingly, the surface of the lake is common property for the owners of the land where the lake was formed, but at the bottom of the lake, individual property lines hold. Of course, the water surface intended by the architect was  really Israel's Sea of Galilee, but the lake's presence no doubt triggered the idea.