2Wheel’in placed a cache in this park 2 years ago to commemorate Fairfax County publishing formal geocaching guidelines. I often asked him who the park was named after? I guess he didn’t know because he never answered me. Do you know? Read on if you’d like to find out a little history about Baron Cameron.
Just who was Baron Cameron? His given name was Thomas Fairfax, 6th Baron Fairfax of Cameron ( born in Kent, England on October 22, 1693 – died December 9, 1781). Various place names in Northern Virginia and West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle are named for him; most notably Fairfax County, Virginia.
In 1719, Fairfax came into possession of the vast Culpeper family estates in Virginia's Northern Neck Proprietary between the Rappahonnock and Potomac Rivers. These lands included a great portion of the Shenandoah and South Branch Potomac valleys, in all consisting of some 5,282,000 acres. Struggling to keep up an expensive lifestyle and maintain Leeds Castle, Fairfax relied on the income from his Virginia tract, both from the sale of land and the annual quit rents, paid by planters who settled in the Northern Neck. These rents were collected by his resident land agent, Robert “King” Carter. In the fall of 1732, Fairfax read Carter's obituary in the London newspaper and was astonished to read of the vast personal wealth Carter had accumulated, which included 300,000 acres of land, 1,000 slaves 10,000 Pounds in cash: this at a time when the Governor of Virginia was paid an annual salary of 200 pounds. Rather than appoint another Virginian to the position, Lord Fairfax arranged to have his cousin Colonel William Fairfax move in 1734 from Massachusetts to Virginia to serve as his resident land agent.
Lord Fairfax traveled to Virginia for the first time between 1735 and 1737 to inspect and protect his lands. In 1738, about thirty farms were established as part of his 9,000-acre Patterson Creek Manor near present day Burlington in West Virginia. The northwestern boundary of his Northern Neck Proprietary was marked in 1746 by the “Fairfax Stone” at the headwaters of the North Branch of the Potomac River. Returning to America in 1747, he settled at Belvoir (present-day Fort Belvoir). In 1748, he made the acquaintance of George Washington, a distant relative of the Fairfax family who was then a youth of 16. Impressed with Washington's energy and talents, Lord Fairfax employed him (his first job ever) to survey his lands lying west of the Blue Ridge. Fairfax moved out to the Shenandoah Valley in 1752. He fixed his residence at a hunting lodge at Greenway Court, near White Post, in Clark County.
During the Revolutionary War he was the only resident "peer" living in the Colonies, and he remained a frank and avowed Loyalist, Fairfax was never insulted or molested by the Whigs. His domain, however, was confiscated during the hostilities by the Virginia Act of 1779. Less than two months after the 1781 defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the 88 year old Fairfax died at his residence. He was buried on the east side of Christ Church (Episcopal) in Winchester, Virginia.
This cache adheres to the geocaching guidelines published by the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) as outlined for their list of pre-approved parks. GZ looks daunting, but there is no need to move anything, climb, crawl, or tear anything up - just look (peer) it's IPV from the right angle. There are a number of trash cans available - please take time to CITO. FCPA parks are open dawn to dusk, do not hunt this cache at night, or at any other time the park is closed.
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| NOTICE: Please be respectful of the posted park hours. If you enter the park after hours you are trespassing. If you are stopped you can be ticketed or arrested and will put the future of geocaching in the parks in jeopardy. |
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