Mayfield Civil War Fort
The People and the Land
American Indians lived on the land long before white settlers and slaves came to this area. Living in nomadic hunter-gatherer groups, people called the Dogues and the Mannahoacs roamed the Northern Virginia Piedmont region. Archaeological evidence dates human activity on this site to at least 6,000 years ago. As European settlement advanced westward from the Tidewater region, the native peoples withdrew.
In 1740 Patrick Hamrick patented his tract of land, which became known as Mayfield. The following year William Davis, who either inherited or purchased Hamrick’s holdings, patented the remaining acreage that ultimately comprised the tract. In 1779, Robert Howson Hooe purchased the 160 acres and by 1861, his grandson, John Hooe, Sr. was master of Mayfield.
John Hooe, Sr. was a gentleman farmer and slaveowner who accumulated significant landholdings and wealth. An 1862 map shows numerous outbuildings associated with the farm. A square stone house was built on the land in the late 18th or early 19th century. The cemetery is northeast of where the house once stood. The Hooe family reportedly left their farm at the time of the occupation by the Confederate army in May 1861, and did not return until after the war. The ravaged land to which they returned bore little resemblance to the prosperous green fields they had left behind.
Marker can be reached from the intersection of Battery Heights Blvd and Quarry Road, on the left when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
