Fairfax Line - History

History

The Northern Neck Grant, commonly referred to as the "Fairfax Grant", has its genesis in 1649 when the exiled King Charles II of Britain rewarded the two Colepeper (Culpeper) brothers and five other loyal friends by issuing a grant for a "porcon of Virginia ... bounded by and within the heads of the Rivers Rappahannock and Patawomecke....". The grant actually took force when Charles was restored to the throne in 1660 and it was recorded and a "Proprietary" created in the New World. At that time, the territory encompassed by the grant had not been explored and was not known. The seven original shares ultimately devolved to Thomas Fairfax, 5th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1657–1710), who married the only child, a daughter named Catherine, of Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper (1635–89).

Commonwealth of Virginia frequently disputed the boundaries of the Fairfax Grant. In 1745, the Privy Council in London decided in favor of Lord Fairfax, designating that "the boundary of the petitioners land doth begin at the first spring of the South Branch of the River Rappahannack now called Rappidan which first spring is the spring of that part of the said River Rappidan as is called in the plans returned by the name of Conway River and that the said boundary be from thence drawn in a straight line North West to the place in the Allagany Mountains where that part of the River Pattawomeck alias Potowmack which is now called Cohongoroota alias Cohongoronton first arises." The imaginary line between the sources of the Conway River and the northern branch of the Potomac River, is commonly referred to as "the Fairfax Line".

Since the boundary created by the two Rivers are known, in 1746 a survey was organized to survey the Fairfax Line. In 1736 John Savage and his survey party had located the site of the source of the North Branch Potomac River (the northern boundary of the tract), but had made no attempt to establish the western boundaries of the 6th Lord Fairfax's lands. The 1746 survey, however, accomplished by Colonel Peter Jefferson and Thomas Lewis under extremely arduous conditions, resulted in both the emplacement of a boundary marker (the "Fairfax Stone") at the source and the establishment of the line of demarcation known as the "Fairfax Line", extending from the Stone south-east to the head water of the Conway River. Lewis's journal of the expedition provides a vivid account of the extraordinarily difficult terrain of the pre-settlement Allegheny Mountains.