Browse Exhibits (5 total)

Davis Family Cemetery

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Lyon Family Civil War Era Cemetery

Pvt. Richard "Dick" Moran, known as the "Warring Methodist", a member of the 43rd  Va. Cavalry and leading member of "Mosby's Rangers" is buried here.  Also buried here are members of the Burdine, Edwards, Havener, Hawes, Jackson, Lyon, Moran, Paxson, and Shryock Families.

The graveyard is in disrepair, with most residents' headstones missing (including Dick Moran's).  Other headstones are barely legible, broken and cracked, or fallen over.  The grass has long overrun the area, concealing tombstones, rocks, and ruts.  There are also various holes created by burrowing critters, either just into the ground or even into graves themselves.  

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Garner Family Cemetery

This small cemetery is located in Fountainhead Regional Park in Fairfax County, Virginia. It is home to the Garner family, who lived in a house nearby before it burned down in 1966. The land was sold to the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority in 1971.

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Brown's Memorial Cemetery

The Brown's Memorial Cemetery, deeded in 1930 by Herbert Brown, is located just off of Leesburg Pike in Drainesville, Virginia.  It is a two acre plot that includes a fenced in 75'x75' plot reserved for the Brown family, their spouses, and their children.  There are a total of 33 graves inside of the iron fence, with 6 others just outside of the fence.  Although most of the headstones have no additional information about the people buried other than their names and dates of birth and death, there are two headstones that have additional elements.  Most notably, the headstone belonging to Russell C. Wintersteen bears a Masonic emblem.  This emblem led me to do more research on the Freemasons, which shaped my argument for my research paper about racism within fraternal organizations in the United States.  

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Willcoxon-Farr Family

This exhibit explores the Willcoxon-Farr Family Cemetery in Fairfax, Virginia as well as some of the history of their property exchanges in Fairfax County from 1805-1866. The Willcoxons were a distinguished family of Fairfax county. Josiah Willcoxon was a prominent member of the community, and with his son Rezen he built the original home of the Blenheim Estate which eventually burned down but was rebuilt by Rezen's son Albert. The Blenheim main house was occupied by Union soldiers and was used as a hospital during the Civil War. After the Civil War the estate fell into disuse and was sold off piecemeal to sharecroppers.

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