Thomas Jefferson Papers

Enclosure: Itinerary from Georgetown Ferry to Edgehill, 30 April 1802

Enclosure

Itinerary from Georgetown Ferry to Edgehill

from George town ferry to

(1.) Thomas’s (blacksmith)   6. miles
Oxroad   2½
Richd Fitzhugh’s   4
Lane’s on Centerville road  11
(2.) Songster’s   4½
Bull run   5.
* Brown’s tavern   5. tolerable
(3) Slaterun church.   5½
(4)* Elkrun church.  14¼ pretty good house
Norman’s bridge   9.
* Herring’s   4 private entertt. clean &
tolerably well
* Stevensburg   5 will do.
Somerville’s mill   8.
Downey’s ford   3
* Orange court house   9 good house
* Gordon’s  10 good house
* Bentivoglio   8 miserable place
mr Randolph’s  10
114.

Observations.

from George town ferry turn down the road half a mile towards Alexandria, till you come to an old house on the right, just below which you will see an obscure road turn up a gullied hill side, which you are to take. it is impossible to give directions as to right and left thro’ the route; the way must be enquired from one stage to another. observe that the general course of the road is South West.

(1.) here you go directly across the Alexandria road (unless you wish to feed or refresh) in which case you go a quarter or half a mile up to Colo. Wren’s tavern, a good one, and return back to the same place. from Thomas’s, crossing the road you go by mr Minor’s. after entering the Oxroad, you leave it and go through the plantations of 3. or 4. mr Fitzhugh’s, a good road, but very zig zag: insomuch that if ever you come to a fork of a road1 leave always the direct one, &2 take that which changes your course, which is frequently done at right angles. but you will be in plantations all the time and can get directions. the road, tho’ private, is free to every body.

(2.) at Songster’s, enquire the new road & ford across Bull run, which are better than the old, and shorter.

(3) just before you come to Slate run church you enter a large road at as acute an angle as a V and seem to turn almost back in turning down the road. about half a mile below the church, you leave the great road taking one which passes thro’ a gate on the road side.

(4) at Elkrun church get very particular directions for the road to Norman’s bridge or ford, because it is very difficult. the difficulty proceeds from your crossing several large roads running up and down the country, and when you enter one of these, you have to turn up or down it half a mile or a mile to find a road leading across from it, somewhat in this manner.

indeed you will have seen a good deal of this from Slate run church to Elkrun church, where good enquiries and attention is requisite. If you could go to Wren’s tavern the overnight (which is but 7. miles from George town)3 the stages would be

1st. day breakfast at Brown’s
lodge at Elkrun
42 miles
2d. day breakfast at Stevensburg
lodge at Orange court house
38.
3d. day. breakfast at Gordon’s
dine at mr Randolph’s
28.

otherwise the stages will be difficult, there being no taverns but those I have noted.

MS (ViU); entirely in TJ’s hand.

Richard FITZHUGH’S plantation was formerly part of the vast Ravensworth tract in Fairfax County that had belonged to Henry Fitzhugh, who divided the land among his five sons and their uncle. Richard LANE’S ordinary was situated on the western boundary of the tract (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, Princeton, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1071–2; Vol. 35:568–9).

NORMAN’S BRIDGE crossed the Rappahannock River between Culpeper and Fauquier Counties. In previous and subsequent travel accounts, TJ refers to this site as Norman’s ford (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, Princeton, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:834, 1232; Vol. 29:530; Vol. 31:244; Vol. 35:568; TJ to James Madison, 9 May 1802; TJ to Henry Dearborn, 26 Aug. 1805).

BENTIVOGLIO tavern was built by Francis Walker and located on the Turkey Sag road in Albemarle County (Alfred J. Morrison, The Beginnings of Public Education in Virginia, 1776–1860 [Richmond, 1917], 157–8).

1TJ here canceled “take.”

2TJ here canceled “turn off.”

3Closing parenthesis supplied by Editors.

Authorial notes

[The following note(s) appeared in the margins or otherwise outside the text flow in the original source, and have been moved here for purposes of the digital edition.]

º *taverns

Index Entries