Gum Springs, Virginia

Date: 1833 [unknown]
Location: Fairfax, Virginia, United States
Surnames/tags: Black_Heritage Black_Communities

African American Settlements and Communities in Virginia

Introduction

Gum Springs, tucked away next to U.S. 1 five miles south of the Beltway, is an African American community that was established in 1833 by West Ford, a Freedman who had been manumitted by Hannah Bushrod Washington (the wife of John Augustine Washington, the brother of President George Washington). It was the first of its kind in Fairfax County, Virginia.

"The name comes from the sweet gum trees on the former William Peake family farm near the spring where George Washington watered his horses on the way to and from his Mount Vernon plantation", according to Ronald Chase, President of the Gum Springs Historical Society.^[1]

Ford was able to develop this 214-acre farming community from the sale of land he inherited from Hannah Washington. Gum Springs Farm became the nucleus of an African-American community throughout the 1800s.

Gum Springs had a school, a church named Bethlehem Baptist Church, an Odd Fellows Hall called "The Pride of Fairfax Lodge #298"

By 1880, 12 families of freed blacks and Ford descendants inhabited the community.

William Dandridge Smith, farmer and grandson of West Ford, and his wife Annie, a schoolteacher, owned a 6 room house and 14 acres of land.

In 1890, the Joint Stock Club was formed. This helped create a safe place for African Americans to obtain land. All land was collaboratively bought, sold and subdivided at cost to other African Americans at a price of $30 an acre.^[2]

Of today’s 2,500 residents, it’s believed that some 250 are descendants of early Gum Springs settlers.

West Ford is thought to be buried at the Mount Vernon Slave Cemetery.

Peake Family Cemetery

Location: 38° 44.224′ N, 77° 5.04′ W. Marker is near Alexandria, Virginia, in Fairfax County. Marker can be reached from Jackies Lane east of Brosar Court when traveling east. Two of the gravesites here belong to heirs of West Ford.

William Dandridge Smith was buried in this cemetery in 1906. Annie Smith was laid to rest near her husband in 1907.

The Buildings Survey reports that “after the departure of the Peake family,” the cemetery continued to be used “by black families of local prominence. Members of the Ford and Javins families are interred in the cemetery.”

• FindAGrave Memorials here

Sources

1. ↑ https://thezebra.org/2020/02/07/preserving-african-american-heritage-gum-springs/
2. ↑ "Preserving African American Heritage -Gum Springs". The Zebra. February 7, 2020. Retrieved March 16, 2022.

• Wikipedia contributors, "Gum Springs, Virginia," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gum_Springs,_Virginia&oldid=1113112922 (accessed November 10, 2022).