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This view was most likely of the fireplace
Ossian Hall is shown in its final years. The windows have been boarded over and the house is being overgrown with foliage. Soon fire would erase all traces of this once-beautiful home.
The stairway of Ossian featured a 'dog- legged' design with a landing halfway up. This view shows the elegantly designed woodwork that was prevalent throughout the house. Until very near the end, the home still held many wonderful old architectural elements and features such as the large door lock on the door in this view.
The rooms of Ossian Hall were elegant and spacious and the detailing was exquisite. Note the picture rail
This photo shows shows an older side of Ossian Hall with more classical architectural elements. It was an elegant structure with classically symmetrical detailing. Note the fan lights in both the central dormer and over the door of the main structure and in the gable of the 1-story wing.
This side of Ossian Hall featured a columned portico, reflective of the style made popular by Mount Vernon. George Washington's famous home was undergoing restoration at the turn of the 19th century and many older homes were adapted during that period to reflect a similar style. |
A NNANDALE IS A small com-
This area was rich in history, with most of its lands owned by the more illustrious of the great Virginia families. As is the case in many areas, historical treasures often fall victim to growth and development. This is a story of one treasure that did not survive.
Ossian Hall was one of three large estates owned by the Fitzhugh family. Ravensworth, the second of the trio, featured heavily in the history of the family of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Oak Hill, the third house, is the only one remaining today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. At this time, its future seems secure.
Ossian Hall was built on the Ravensworth plantation land grant that was deeded to the Fitzhugh family in the late 1600s. The name "Ossian Hall" was derived from the legendary Gaelic warrior whose exploits were published in "Tamora" in 1763.
The plantation was occupied by tenant farmers from 1694, when the land grant was confirmed, until the late 1700s when William Fitzhugh Jr. of Chatham Manor in Stafford County built the mansion that was to become known as Ravensworth. He was the fourth generation of Fitzhughs to own the land and the first generation of family members to actually reside upon it.
Ossian Hall may have been built earlier than Ravensworth. It has been estimated that it was constructed anywhere from 1730 up to around 1780. It is believed to have been built by Nicholas Fitzhugh, the son of Maj. Henry Fitzhugh for his personal use. Nicholas had a large family with 12 children.
In 1804, Dr. David Stuart purchased the house and moved there with his wife, Eleanor Calvert Custis Stuart, and their children. Dr. Stuart was an Episcopal minister from King George County. Mrs. Stuart was the widow of John Parke Custis of Abingdon. Prior to her marriage to Dr. Stuart in 1783, she was the widowed daughter-in-law of Martha Washington. The couple lived at Abingdon, the Custis family home, for 10 years prior to moving to Hope Park in Fairfax. They then settled in at Ossian Hall.
Dr. Stuart was a close personal friend of George Washington and was one of the three original commissioners to plan the Federal City (now Washington). He became prominent in legislative affairs (he represented Fairfax County in the Virginia House of Burgesses) and with his more famous friend, worked on the canal project at Great Falls.
The Stuart family consisted of 17 children from the Stuarts' marriage and four children from Mrs. Stuart's marriage to John Custis. Ossian Hall had to have been roomier than normal to contain such large families!
The home is referenced in letters both during the time of George and Martha Washington and the turbulent times of the Civil War when the home was occupied by friends and family closely connected with Gen. Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Randolph Custis Lee. It was to nearby Ravensworth that Mrs. Lee and her children first fled when Arlington, their family home, was seized by Yankees. (They would never live in Arlington again.)
Ossian Hall was a large 2-story frame house with dormers built in the Georgian style. It featured a five-bay (opening) facade with a central hallway. It was an imposing structure with a small, one-story wing that led to a 1-story portion of the house. The interior was elegantly designed with beautifully hand-carved woodwork and mantels. The large parlor featured an exquisitely carved chair rail and mantel and over mantel.
The two smaller first-floor rooms featured corner fireplaces designed in order to utilize access to the central chimney on that side of the house. Ossian Hall was built to last.
From any angle, the home was impressive. One entrance was of Colonial-era styling and featured an impressive entrance doorway with a fan light and a simple gabled porch (with benches between the columns--most likely a later addition), while the entrance on the other side was modified in the late 1800s to reflect the elaborate colonnade style made popular by the resurgence of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington in nearby Alexandria.
Even the 1-story wing featured a comfortable porch that seemed to be more for the personal use of the residents rather than to impress those approaching the mansion.
Ossian Hall sat high upon a hill overlooking what is now Braddock Road but was accessed by a long tree-lined drive that originated off of what is today known as Ravensworth Road.
Mrs. Stuart died in 1811 and her husband soon followed in 1814. The mansion changed owners and occupants many times during its lifetime until it was purchased in 1918 by Kansas Sen. Joseph L. Bristow. This began a happy period for Ossian Hall that lasted until the death (at Ossian Hall) of the senator in 1944.
Bristow amassed quite a lot of land in the area during his time at Ossian Hall. Members of the senator's family continued to reside at the home until 1951. Ossian Hall then began its fatal decline. It sat vacant for several years and suffered the indignities that befall such structures.
Mother Nature and vandals did their best to destroy the beauty and the very structural foundation of this once-elegant mansion. All of the intricately carved interior woodwork was removed or disappeared over time and the house was a popular site for those who did not have its best interest at heart. Vandals destroyed what remained of the elaborate woodwork with hatchets and crow bars.
(Fortunately, some of the elaborate woodwork remains today. Twiford, in the Oak Grove vicinity of Westmoreland County, today boasts "Federal period paneling" that was "rescued from the destruction of Ossian Hall." This beautiful woodwork now graces the dining room to the southeast of the center hall of Twiford.)
In 1957, a truck pulled up in the middle of the night and "removed" all of the brass door locks and most of the remaining mantels from the structure. Finally the home was deemed uninhabitable and "in the way" of a new subdivision. (The subdivision would bear the name of Ossian Hall's last resident.)
On Sept. 9, 1959, the house was burned as a practice exercise by the Annandale Fire Department. This was a "social event" of sorts, with some 500 spectators witnessing the destruction. Six volunteer fire departments participated, first setting fire to the rooms one at a time and extinguishing them, then burning the entire house. The wonderful old brick chimneys were pulled down after the building was destroyed.
The only remaining remnant of the former plantation was a small, elevated undeveloped corner lot that was believed to be the site of a small cemetery that was significant to the house.
Although historically it was thought that many of the Custis-Stuart family were buried here, there were no remaining stones or grave markers as late as the early 1970s, nor was there any available record to certify beyond any doubt that this site was indeed a burial ground. Ironically, the logo of the Annandale Fire Department proudly features a rendering of Ossian Hall as its centerpiece.
Luckily, Ossian Hall was the focus of a Historic American Building Survey report in the 1950s--just a while before its loss. This report is on file at the Library of Congress and features many photographs of the exterior of the house and a few of the interior. The photographs accompanying this article are from this survey. They are all that remain of Ossian Hall.
There is also a smaller report that is composed of photographs
DONNA CHASEN is a member of the board of directors of the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation Inc. Ossian Hall sat near the present-day location of Annandale High School from which the author graduated. Forty-six years have passed since the loss of Ossian Hall, but the house remains a strong influence in Chasen's efforts to preserve endangered historical structures. Although Chasen was not quite 9 years old when Ossian Hall burned, it was the loss of this house that first sparked her indignation at the destruction of such treasures and fueled her lifelong interest in historic preservation. She may be reached for questions or comments at saveidlewild@yahoo .com.
