Huntley Part 8

In addition, Mason was a lawyer, who later became a justice of the peace and a judge. For several years before and after 1820, Hadfield was involved with the design and construction of the City Hall, which was to house the Courts of the District. Mason would have been aware of this and would probably have known Hadfield.

Certainly the design evidence of Huntley indicates the work of an architect. The structure is much too architectonic to have evolved and in many respects much too advanced for its day to have been designed by a local carpenter-builder. Perhaps at some future time we shall discover information which indicates precisely whose trained hand put all the pieces together in this highly satisfactory manner.

Until that time, the evidence strongly points to George Hadfield.

Chapter 4 Notes

[Footnote 58: Paul F. Norton, "Decatur House: Design and Designer,"

=Historic Preservation=, Volume 19, Numbers 3-4 (July-December 1967), pp. 9-24.]

[Footnote 59: Fiske Kimball, =Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic=, (New York: Dover, 1966 Reprint), p.

27.]

[Footnote 60: Rowland, =George Mason=, Volume II, p. 369.]

[Footnote 61: H. M. Pierce Gallagher, =Robert Mills= (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), p. 170.]

[Footnote 62: Deering Davis, Stephen P. Dorsey, Ralph Cole Hall, =Georgetown Houses of the Federal Period=. (New York: Bonanza Books, 1944), pp. 21-23.]

[Footnote 63: Lonnelle Aikman, =We the People= (Was.h.i.+ngton: U.S. Capitol Historical Society, 1965), p. 33.]

[Footnote 64: H.M. Gallagher, =Robert Mills=, p. 169.]

[Footnote 65: George S. Hunsberger, "The Architectural Career of George Hadfield," =Records of the Columbia Historical Society=, Volume 51-52 (1955), pp. 46-65.]

[Footnote 66: =Ibid.=]

[Footnote 67: =Ibid.= p. 51. See also: Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, =Dictionary of American Biography= (New York: Charles Scribner, 1932 (1931)), Vol. IV, p. 76.]

[Footnote 68: Letter, George Hadfield to Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson papers. Volume 222, op. 39775, Library of Congress.]

[Footnote 69: =Daily National Intelligencer=, February 13, 1826.]

[Footnote 70: Karl Schuon, =Home of the Commandants= (Was.h.i.+ngton: Leatherneck a.s.sociation, 1966), pp. 61-64.]

[Footnote 71: Harry F. Cunningham, Joseph A. Younger, Wilmer Smith, =Measured Drawings of Georgian Architecture in the District of Columbia, 1750-1820= (New York: Architectural Book Co., 1914), Sheets 58-61.]

[Footnote 72: Original watercolor signed "Geo. Hadfield, Sept. 1798,"

Avery Library, Columbia University.]

[Footnote 73: Murray H. Nelligan, =Custis-Lee Mansion= (Was.h.i.+ngton: National Park Service, 1950), pp. 2-4, 6, 15, 24. The staff at Arlington House was also kind enough to allow the author the use of Mr.

Nellingan's unpublished ma.n.u.script on Arlington House.]

[Footnote 74: H. Paul Caemmerer, =Historic Was.h.i.+ngton= (Was.h.i.+ngton: Columbia Historical Society, 1960), pp. 34, 39.]

[Footnote 75: Edith Moore Sprouse, "Died in a Kind of Fit Like....", Hollin Hills Bulletin, May and June-July, 1969.]

SUMMARY

It should be clear from the picture of Mason which emerges from an earlier part of this report that his tastes and his capabilities could have included a house designed by a known architect. His family ties, educational background, travels, position and social standing evidence the highest standards of his day. His acquisition of Colross, his sensitive repairs of that structure and the manner in which he seems to have furnished the house again indicate taste and awareness of current architectural trends.

The design evidence indicates that Mason did build well at Huntley, and that he sought a.s.sistance in doing so. Huntley's similarities to other area structures designed by the architect George Hadfield are striking.

In addition, of all the architects in the area at the time Hadfield was most available and is believed to have already designed one house for the Mason family, a.n.a.lostan. There is also good reason to believe that Thomson Francis Mason and Hadfield knew each other.

Whatever the derivation of the mansion house at Huntley, it survives as a notable example of early nineteenth century architecture; as an example of a farm or country house of an early nineteenth century city dweller; as a Mason family house and as a part of a well sited and relatively complete complex. When considered together, these factors make Huntley an important architectural landmark.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Figure 28. Huntley, front elevation, 1946. Edward M. Pitt, Architect. Blueprints courtesy Col. and Mrs. Ransom Amlong. Photo copies by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 29. Huntley, rear elevation.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 30. Huntley, bas.e.m.e.nt floor plan.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 31. Huntley, first floor plan.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 32. Huntley, second floor plan.]

APPENDIX A

SOME MASON HOUSES IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA

Mason land holdings were vast in Stafford, Prince William, Loudoun and Fairfax Counties in Virginia, and in Maryland and Kentucky. In the northern Virginia area the Masons built or occupied a number of houses many of which are mentioned here.

Thomson Francis Mason Houses

_501 Cameron Street_, Alexandria. This is believed to be the "large and comodious" dwelling which, according to an 1823 entry in the _Alexandria Gazette_, Mason was renting at the corner of Cameron and Pitt Streets.

The house is a three-story brick structure, probably built during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It is still standing.

(_Alexandria Gazette_, March 13, 1823 and November 1, 1833.)

_Colross_, Alexandria, 1100 block of Oronoco Street, block between Oronoco, Pendleton, North Henry and North Fayette. This was an existing house built in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, acquired by Thomson F. Mason in 1833. Mason was buried in a tomb behind the mansion after his death in 1838. The main house was moved to Princeton, New Jersey, in 1929 and rebuilt there. Today the block in Alexandria includes a warehouse, car wash, automobile repair facility and a transformer station. The present location of the remains of Thomson F.

Mason, removed from Colross, is not known to the writer. (Mary G.

Powell, _The History of Alexandria_, Va., Richmond, Wm. Byrd Press, 1928, p. 261; _New York Herald Tribune_, July 7, 1929, "Colross Built 1785, to come to Jersey site."; Mrs. Betty Carter Smoot, _Days in an Old Town_, Alexandria, privately printed, 1934, pp. 121-32; Henry H. Saylor, _Alexandria Virginia_, The White Pine Series, New York, Russell F.

Whitehead, 1926, (photographs and drawings); plus additional material available in the Alexandria Public Library.)

_The Hallowell School_, 609 Oronoco Street, Alexandria. A two-and-a-half-story brick structure, built circa 1800, it is the companion house to the Lee Home, next door at 607 Oronoco. At 609, Benjamin Hallowell operated a school among whose students was Robert E.

Lee. T.F. Mason acquired the house after the Hallowell School moved elsewhere, at public auction on February 9, 1835, though he may have lived there earlier as a tenant. By the time of purchase he was already a resident at Colross, but a sale advertis.e.m.e.nt for 609 Oronoco Street in 1839 calls it "... the late residence of the Honorable T. F. Mason ...". The house is still standing. (Deering Davis, Stephen P. Dorsey and Ralph Cole Hall, _Alexandria Houses_, Cornwall, N.Y. Architectural Book Publis.h.i.+ng Co., Inc., 1946, pp. 88-89, 126; Benjamin Hallowell, _Autobiography_, Philadelphia, Friends Book a.s.sociation, 1884, pp.

95-120. _Alexandria Gazette_, August 30, 1839,; Alexandria Deed Book V-2, p. 355(1835).)