Hear From the Residents

There’s so much I want to write about my time at Woodlawn and Pope-Leighey. Like the feeling of being nestled within the woods of Virginia, the rhythm of nature: the birds, the trees, the smell. About the dream that is Pope-Leighey, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home, saved in the 1960s. I want to write about what it means to preserve history, and by whom and to whom it is written. I want to tell you about Hanson, the enslaved cook of Woodlawn, and his Chicken Broth recipe, and of the artistic Kester brothers, who rescued the property at the turn of the century, moving in with their mother and 67 cats. But I will write briefly of the ghosts of Woodlawn instead. Not the ghosts that some have claimed haunt its halls, or turn on the lights at night, but the ones whose proof of life lingers in the walls.

In its 200 years of history, Woodlawn – the estate that sits atop a hill in Virginia – has been privately owned by six families. Originally part of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, the plantation was gifted to Nelly Custis and Lawrence Lewis upon marriage. It was built, like much of the U.S, by enslaved people, their hands shaping it brick by brick. Then came the Kesters, and the Masons, and the Sharpes, and finally, the Underwoods. But before it was anyone’s, before it was taken to be the Washington’s, this was the land of the Doeg People – a Native American community that lived along the Potomac, moving with the tides and seasons. Their lives were rooted in the land long before its borders had a name.

And it’s of them that I think first when I drive past the gate, their displacement. The first inhabitants of this land and the stories they carried. I think of all the people who walked the same path, and their stories as well.

During orientation, James, a Program Assistant, took our group on a quick detour to show us something they’d found not that long ago: two fingers pressed on a brick near the side of the house. 

“We don’t know who this was. It could’ve been a man, a woman, or a child. And we’ll never know.”

As I rest two of my fingers, I hope with childlike wonder to be swept away and transported back in time to find the answer. The ‘we’ll never know’ haunts me. And I think of everything at once, every piece of history about our ancestors that has been forgotten, or purposefully erased.