Fairfax Stone State Park I Trail Cooking

In what is most likely West Virginia’s smallest state park, two monuments mark the farthest reaches of Lord Fairfax’s land grant from colonial times.

Fairfax Stone State Park comprises four acres and is named after the Fairfax Stone, a surveyor’s marker and boundary stone used in the 1700s to settle a dispute over land in the English colonies of Maryland and Virginia. One of the oldest markers in the United States, the stone rests at the junction of Tucker, Grant, and Preston counties, marking the boundary between Maryland and West Virginia (although in reality the state line is not there – it is the Potomac River a short distance away.)

The Fairfax Stone marks the western boundary of land granted to Lord Fairfax by the King of England in the 1700s. Two centuries later, the stone was used to determine the boundary between West Virginia and Maryland in a Supreme Court case. Over the years, the stone has been changed out for various reasons. The current Fairfax Stone, the fifth, was set in 1910, and designated a state historic monument and became part of the West Virginia State Park system in 1957, when the Western Maryland Railroad donated four acres of land surrounding the stone to the state. In 1970, the stone was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

While I wouldn’t have driven all the way there just to visit this state park, it’s only a few miles from Blackwater Falls State Park, so we visited both on the same day. It is a 135-mile drive from our place in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The towns of Davis and Thomas are thriving small towns because of winter snow activities in the area.

I have enjoyed learning about Lord Fairfax and how much he shaped the colonies in his time. His reach extends across modern-day Virginia and West Virginia. He was the only peer who came to the New World and stayed. He really liked it. He had inherited his land trust from his Mother’s father; she was a Culpeper (yes, the town in Virginia was named after her). In 1649, the 629,000-acre Northern Neck Proprietary was established by King Charles II as a one-seventh partition of the Crown’s North American holdings. The original recipient of this territory was John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper (it is now spelled Culpeper) of Thoresway. Upon his passing, control of the territory was transferred to his son, Thomas Culpeper, the 2nd Baron. In 1688, he received a new patent from King James confirming his claim to the territory, but he died the following year. 5/6th of his share of the colony was inherited by his daughter, Catherine Culpeper, and her husband, Thomas Fairfax, 5th Lord Fairfax of Cameron. Upon his death in 1710, control of the territory passed on to his son Thomas, the 6th Lord. The death of his grandmother in May of that year left him the remaining sixth share. Given that he was only 16 at the time, administrative authority fell to his mother, who would maintain it until her death in 1719, when the whole of the proprietary was passed on to Thomas.

(Little history here: George Washington started working for Lord Fairfax at 16 years old, in 1748. In 1749, he platted out Culpeper as a town. Lord Fairfax was his mentor as a young man, and helped Washington become successful in his career, due to which Washington shielded Fairfax from the war in his late life.)

The Fairfax clan was having money troubles because Lord Fairfax’s dad (the 5th lord) was a rake who died young. He went to the Americas to see it. And he liked it a lot – and set up quite a bit in the colonies. The northwestern boundary of the Northern Neck Proprietary, which had been contested by the Privy Council of Great Britain, was marked in 1746 by the Fairfax Stone at the headwaters of the North Branch Potomac River. And that is where this state park comes into play. Fairfax paid to have it surveyed to prove it was his and to protect his inheritance. One of the men on the survey was Thomas Jefferson’s father, doing much of the work.

He died after the Revolutionary War and is buried in Winchester, Virginia. The land holdings he sold and gave away to those willing to come farm and build towns, helping build the new country. At one point, Winchester was the wild west, the western frontier.

Anyhow, history aside, we drove over to visit it before heading back home. It’s well marked and has only one turn off the main road, with a massive sign showing where to turn. The road is well-maintained. It passes through logged land that includes electrical lines and gas lines.

There is also a geocache hidden in the park.

Go. Learn history. Sit in the sun and ponder long ago.

As always, West Virginia State Parks are free.