Salona and the Maffitts
[18] Handwritten family tree, source unknown, in possession of Henry
Mackall, Fairfax, Virginia; interviews with Peter Maffitt, direct
descendant of William Maffitt, by the author.
[19] John H. Johns, _History of the Rock Presbyterian Church of Cecil
County, Md._ (Oxford, Pa.: Oxford Press, 1872) p. 20; interviews with
Peter Maffitt by the author.
[20] Princeton University, _General Catalogue, 1767-1845_. Peter
Maffitt also investigated and reported that William had not attended
the university. Founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey,
Princeton did not have a theological school, as such, until 1812.
Because a persistent legend links Maffitt with South Carolina, the
author checked his possible attendance at the College of Charleston,
S.C. Surviving enrollment records beginning in 1790 (the college was
founded in 1770) show no William Maffitt. Both the College of William
and Mary and the University of Delaware reported no William Maffitt
listed in any surviving records.
[21] An unsigned note from the Presbyterian Historical Society, 425
Lombard St., Philadelphia, Pa., to the author, dated December 30,
1976, states:
A check of the Presbytery of New Castle
Minutes for the dates you cited, revealed
mention of Maffitt's name but presented no
biographical data. The 7 April 1795 minute
referred only to his transfer from New
Castle to Baltimore Presbytery and that he
would reside in Alexandria.
[22] Letter from the University of Delaware to the author, April 4,
1977. Working papers, Virginia Room, Fairfax County Central Library.
[23] Note to the author from the Presbyterian Historical Society,
December 30, 1976.
[24] Board of Trustees, Alexandria Academy, Minutes, April, 1795.
[25] Letter dated February 26, 1798, from George Washington to Dr.
David Stuart. George Washington, _The Writings of George Washington,
1749-1799_, John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. (Washington, D.C.: United States
Government Printing Office, 1941), Vol. 36, p. 170.
[26] Mary G. Powell, _History of Old Alexandria, Va._ (Richmond, Va.:
William Byrd Press, 1928), p. 155. According to A. J. Morrison in
_The Beginnings of Public Education in Virginia, 1776-1860_
(Richmond, Va.: Virginia State Board of Education, 1917), while the
Alexandria Academy was incorporated in 1786 with George Washington as
one of the trustees, the school seemingly predated its incorporation.
[27] _Alexandria Gazette_, November 4, 1801.
[28] Board of Trustees, Alexandria Academy, Minutes, March, 1804.
[29] This is evident only through announcements in the _Alexandria
Gazette_, and not in lodge records, although Maffitt's likeness, a
Raphael Peale physiognotrace, is displayed in the Lodge 22
headquarters now located in the George Washington Masonic Memorial in
Alexandria and is reproduced in this monograph. Lodge records list
Maffitt in 1804 as chaplain, but no other records show even the dates
of his initiation or transfer affiliation. F. L. Brockett, _The Lodge
of Washington_ (Alexandria, Va.: George E. French, c. 1875) wrote
profiles of 34 members of the lodge as of 1814, but these do not
include Maffitt. However, Brockett reported that in 1799 Maffitt's
charity sermon brought in a collection of $74.52, and his sermon of
1805, $91.67. "Charity sermons were preached on St. John's Day,
December 27, and the collection was used to assist the poor."
[30] _Alexandria Gazette_, December 24, 1799.
[31] The Reverend Thomas Davis, Rector of Christ Church, Alexandria,
preached the funeral sermon at Mount Vernon. The Reverend James Muir,
pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Alexandria, and Dr. Addison, an
Episcopal clergyman from Maryland, also attended the service. Charles
W. Stetson, _Washington and His Neighbors_ (Richmond, Va.: Garrett &
Massie, Inc., 1956), p. 298, quoting Tobias Lear.
[32] Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Minutes of
the General Assembly, 1798, p. 141. The preceding year, Maffitt was
listed simply as "licentiate."
[33] Ibid., Minutes, 1800, p. 192. This year, and in succeeding
years, Maffitt is listed as "without charge." He did, however, carry
out various pastoral duties. In 1802, at the ordination of James
Inglis in the Presbyterian Meeting House, Maffitt "concluded the
services, after having exhorted the newly ordained pastor and the
people of his charge, in a short but impressive address," according
to the _Alexandria Gazette_ of April 30, 1802.
In May, 1808, Maffitt was a commissioner to the general assembly of
the Presbyterian Church at its meeting in Baltimore, along with
Reverend James Inglis. He was late in arriving and "took his seat the
4th day of the sessions." The minutes of May 23 (p. 399) report that
The Reverend William Maffitt, of the
Presbytery of Baltimore, appeared in the
Assembly and stated that he had neglected to
bring his commission. Two commissioners from
the same Presbytery certified that Mr.
Maffitt had been appointed by the Presbytery
as commissioner to this Assembly. On motion:
_Resolved_, that Mr. Maffitt be received as
a member. And he accordingly took his seat.
[34] Letter to the author from Ruth B. Lee, librarian of the
Historical Foundation of the Presbyterian and Reformed Church,
Montreat, N.C., dated March 29, 1977:
As you will see the first reference to Mr.
Maffitt is as a licentiate in Baltimore
Presbytery. His only pastorate seems to have
been in Bladensburg (later Hyattsville), and
after this he is listed as being without
charge. This means that he was not an active
pastor in a church. He seems to have
remained in Baltimore Presbytery, though of
course he may have served outside the
Presbytery at some time and still remained a
member of that Presbytery. I question
whether he was actually ordained by
Newcastle Presbytery, since the ordination
usually took place when a man was installed
as the pastor of a church. The licentiate is
the candidate for the ministry who is
licensed to preach but is not yet ordained.
Minutes for 1809 (p. 238) and 1814 (p. 184) show Maffitt "without
charge." Minutes for 1824 list him in the Presbytery of the District
of Columbia as "near Georgetown, D.C." again without charge. The
present offices of the Presbytery of the District of Columbia have
his death date as his only record in their files.
[35] _Alexandria Gazette_, January 30, 1800.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid., February 10, 1800.
[38] Ibid., February 21, 1803.
[39] Alexandria Library Company, Minutes, 1801, 1802, 1803, 1804.
[40] _Alexandria Gazette_, May 7, 1803. Although this marriage was
performed by the pastor of the Presbyterian Meeting house, it did not
take place in the church and is not listed in the church records.
[41] Lee, _Chronicle_, p. 183.
[42] Ibid., pp. 182-3.
[43] Ibid., pp. 183, 273. Here is one of the sources of confusion, as
Lee states on page 183 that Henrietta was "married secondly to the
Rev. William Maffit (sic) of South Carolina."
[44] Ibid., p. 183.
[45] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Book H, p. 55.
[46] Ibid., I, p. 413.
[47] Old Presbyterian Meeting House, Alexandria, Baptismal Records.
[48] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Book J, p. 338.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Fairfax County Personal Property Tax Records, 1805.
[51] Fairfax County Census, 1810, #284.
[52] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Books J, pp. 241, 338; K, p. 143;
L, p. 294.
[53] Ibid., L, pp. 294, 302-3.
[54] Harrison, _Landmarks_; Lee, _Chronicle_.
[55] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Book L, pp. 294, 298.
[56] Ibid., p. 304.
[57] Ibid., p. 305.
[58] Gamble, _Sully_, p. 50.
[59] Lee, _Lee of Virginia_, p. 468.
[60] McGroarty, _Presbyterian Meeting House_, p. 54, footnote.
[61] Letter from Ann Calvert (Stuart) Robinson to Elizabeth Collins
Lee, October 19, 1806. Lee Family Papers, Section II, Richard Bland
Lee, Virginia Historical Society.
[62] _Alexandria Gazette_, January 8, 1802.
[63] Unsigned, undated note (1977) from Sabine Hall to the author
states that these dates are in a family Bible at the hall. No
marriage dates were sent, although they had been requested.
[64] Robert Carter Randolph, _The Carter Tree_ (Richmond, Va.: By the
author, 1951), omits any mention of offspring of Ann's first marriage
but does list William Maffitt, II, as the only child of her second
marriage. However, the American Genealogical Research Institute,
History of the Carter Family_ (Washington, D.C.: 1972) states that
four children were born to Charles and Nancy Carter: John Hill who
never married; Susan, who married the Rev. Thomas Balch, pastor of
the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church; Mary Walker, who married
Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones; and Elizabeth, who married Alfred
Carter. Apparently the Carter children, the young Turberville boys,
and the Maffitts all lived together as one family after the
Maffitt-Carter marriage.
Charles B. Carter was a cousin of Ann's, who owned "Richmond Hill" in
Richmond County and "Mount Atlas" in Prince William. His grave is at
Mount Atlas and the tombstone bears the dates 1766-1807.
[65] Young William grew up at Salona, received his M.D. from
Columbian College, (later part of George Washington University),
served in the Army Medical Corps, went to St. Louis, Missouri, in
1841, married Julie Chouteau, descendant of a founder of St. Louis,
in 1843, and died there in 1864. It is interesting to note that of
the seven members of his college class, he is the only one for whom
the college does not have a full record.
[66] _Alexandria Gazette_, August 18, 1812.
[67] Allan C. Clark, _Life and Letters of Dolly Madison_, letter from
Dolley Madison to her sister Lucy Todd, August 23, 1814.
[68] Ethel Stephens Arnett, _Mrs. James Madison: The Incomparable
Dolley_ (Greensboro, N.C., Piedmont Press, 1972), p. 238, 243;
Dorothy Payne Todd Madison, _Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison_
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, c. 1886), p. 108.
[69] Clark, _Letters_, Madison to Todd, August 23, 1814.
[70] Ibid., August 24, 1814. The portrait was started by Gilbert
Stuart and completed by an artist named Winstanley. A footnote on p.
184 quoted from Laura Carter Holloway Langford, _Ladies of the White
House_ states:
Half a century later, when the White House
was undergoing a renovation, this portrait
was sent, with many others subsequently
added to this solitary collection, to be
cleaned and the frame burnished. The artist
found on examination that the canvas had
never been cut, since the rusted tacks,
time-worn frame, and the size compared with
the original picture, was the most
conclusive evidence that Mrs. Madison did
not cut it out with a carving knife, as many
traditions have industrially circulated.
Matilda Lee Love was the daughter of Ludwell Lee of Belmont in
Loudoun County, granddaughter of Richard Henry Lee, and niece of
Harriotte Lee Turberville Maffitt. Her mother was Flora, sister of
Matilda Lee.
According to Mrs. Love's memoirs in the _Lee Chronicle_:
Mr. Madison was a relation of my stepmother,
Mrs. Lee, and was always very civil to us,
and we dined and stayed at the President's
several times. My father never would go
there, as he opposed the Madisons to the day
of his death ... I inherited from my mother,
who was very wealthy, a farm near the little
Falls of the Potomac, where we were to
reside, and which I named Rokeby, after
Scott's poem of that name, as Matilda was
the heiress of Rokeby.
[71] Arnett, _Mrs. James Madison_, pp. 243-46; Lee, _Chronicle_, p.
291.
[72] Irving Brant, _James Madison: Commander in Chief, 1812-1836_,
pp. 306-8. Brant's error regarding Maffitt's first name has been
picked up by Walter Lord, _Dawn's Early Light_, p. 171: "James
Madison ... and the rest of the presidential party rode to Salona,
the home of the Reverend John Maffitt where Madison now expected to
meet his wife," and by Alan Lloyd, _The Scorching of Washington_, p.
170: "Madison crossed the Potomac by ferry-boat, trekking into the
adjacent hills toward the emergency rendezvous he had fixed with
Carroll: Salona, the home of an ecclesiastical friend named John
Maffitt."
When Alexandria historian Jean Elliot called Brant's attention to his
error in Maffitt's first name, Brant replied to her on July 12, 1973:
My research cards are all in the Library of
Congress, so I have no way of knowing
whether I was misled by some earlier writing
or went wrong on my own, but the matter of
accuracy can be settled by the law of
probability. There is no chance whatever
that two preachers named John and William
Maffitt co-existed in the same little
community, at precisely the same time, with
abundant evidence of William's existence and
none of John's, in the records you cite.
[73] Old Dominion Road (Drive) did not exist until the old trolley
tracks were removed in the 20th century. In a letter to Mrs.
Elizabeth Payne, Chairman of the Committee for the Marie Butler Leven
Preserve, Brant wrote on March 9, 1972: "I am not certain about the
road from Falls Church to Salona, whether it branched off from Kirby
Road at the site of the Nelson-Patterson Mill."
[74] Brant, _James Madison_, pp. 307-9.
[75] "The Rambler," _Sunday Star_, August 2, 1914.
[76] Ibid.
[77] Lee, _Chronicle_, p. 291; Arnett, _Mrs. James Madison_, pp.
245-6.
[78] Fairfax County, Virginia, Personal Property Tax Books,
1812-1843. Microfilm, Virginia State Library, Archives Division.
[79] Lee, _Chronicle_, Matilda Lee Love, p. 292.
[80] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Book I, p. 294. The graveyard no
longer exists.
[81] Ibid.
[82] Letter from Harriotte Maffitt to George Turberville, July 13,
1819. Copy provided by Henry and Douglass Mackall from original in
possession of George Turberville of Manassas.
[83] Letter from William C. Woodbridge (director of The Asylum) to
the Reverend William Maffitt, September 21, 1820. Copy provided by
Henry and Douglass Mackall from original in possession of George
Turberville of Manassas.
[84] Franklin B. Gillespie, _A Brief History of the Lewinsville
Presbyterian Church_, no date.
[85] Presbyterian Church in the United States, Minutes.
[86] Fairfax County, Virginia, Will Book N-1, p. 49; Fairfax County,
Virginia, Deed Book V-2, p. 85. Trudie Sundberg and John Gott point
out in the 1971 _Yearbook_ of the Historical Society of Fairfax
County, Vol. 11, p. 5, that the church never received Miss Jones'
four acres. Instead the property reverted to the estate of her
mother, Lettice Turberville Jones, and was sold at auction with the
rest of Lettice Jones' estate to pay off the creditors of Troilus
Lewin Turberville, her brother. The present Lewinsville Presbyterian
Church stands on acreage given by the heirs of Dr. Mottrom Ball, who
had married Martha Turberville, sister of Troilus and Lettice.
III
SALONA FOR SALE
After William Maffitt's death, his widow must have found life
difficult. She had to keep up the farm, care for the slaves, and
support her children and stepchildren. There was an outstanding debt
on Salona owed to her sister-in-law in Georgetown. William Maffitt
had mortgaged the property with Margaret Whann for $6,000 in 1823,
and had paid back almost half of the amount due prior to his
death.[87]
Ann Maffitt's state of mind was clearly revealed in a letter written
by her on July 22, 1828, to Col. George W. Hunter urging him to
reconsider his refusal to become administrator of her husband's
estate. She pleaded with him: "... I shall send my dear fatherless
(and I might almost add) friendless Son to you this morning who will
say everything he can to beg you not to desert us in our great time
of need...."[88]
[Illustration: _Dr. William Maffitt, Jr., Major, U. S. Army. Born
November 14, 1811, in Virginia. Died October 7, 1864, St. Louis,
Missouri. He was Reverend William Maffitt's only son._]
Apparently her appeal fell on deaf ears, for the court records show
that Robert C. Jackson was administrator. Margaret Whann brought a
chancery suit against the heirs of Maffitt in 1831 and bought Salona
at auction through her agent, Joseph McVean, for $2,650, only partial
repayment of the $3,716.54 still due her. Meanwhile, slaves and
personal property were sold, and small debts repaid. George W.
Hunter, the lawyer who had refused to serve as administrator, came to
a sale on May 20, 1829. John Hill Carter (Ann's son by her first
marriage), E. L. Carter (probably her youngest daughter, Elizabeth),
Thomas B. Balch (husband of her daughter Susan), Commodore Thomas ap
Catesby Jones (a close neighbor), and George L. Turberville
(Harriotte's son by her first marriage) all bought some of the slaves
and personal property. When the property evaluation was made, the
estate was worth $1,822.87-1/2. The inventory of Maffitt's personal
property, exclusive of his slaves, was $1,588.89-1/2. No total was
given for the value of the slaves. The court-appointed appraisers
were Nicholas Paine, William Swink, and Joseph Sewell. Although they
prepared their inventory in 1828, it was not reviewed and accepted by
the court until March, 1832.[89]
Margaret Maffitt had been born in Cecil County, Maryland, on April 7,
1780. According to Sarah Somervell Mackall, Margaret went to
Georgetown to visit her eldest sister Jane, wife of William Whann.
While there, Margaret met William's brother, David Whann, and they
were married on November 16, 1807. Until 1804, David had been a
purser in the U. S. Navy on the _Essex_. Later he became a paymaster
and traveled widely abroad. A captain in the D.C. Militia, he died of
sunstroke in May, 1813, while reviewing his men on the parade ground.
His widow "never received any compensation from the government" and
was left with two small children, a son and a daughter.[90]
Apparently Margaret permitted Ann Maffitt to remain at Salona until
1835 at least and possibly until 1842 when the property was sold to
Chapman Lee. In any case, Ann Maffitt and the three Maffitt children
did not sign a quitclaim to the property until 1835.[91] Margaret
Whann probably hired a tenant to maintain Salona as a working farm.
There are no indications that Mrs. Whann ever lived at Salona; the
deed to Lee refers to her as being "of Georgetown in the District of
Columbia."
Chapman Lee, who was living in Alexandria at the time of the sale,
bought the property in 1842.[92] He held the property for three
years, then divided it and sold 208 acres to Elisha Sherman "late of
Fairfield County, Connecticut."[93] The balance was conveyed to James
McVean and Samuel M. Whann. Eight years later, Elisha Sherman and
Anna, his wife, late of Fairfax County and "now of Washington County,
D.C.," sold to Jacob G. Smoot of Georgetown the tract "heretofore
called Langley but now called Salona"--208 acres.[94]
[Illustration: _The Maffitt grave is located in the Lewinsville
Presbyterian Church cemetery, McLean. Photo by the author, 1975._]