Clarks Crossing Road, West of the W&OD: A Short History

Introduction

If you live in northeast Vienna or just beyond, you may be aware of the Clarks Crossing Road that extends from Beulah Road down to the Washington & Old Dominion bike trail and the Clarks Crossing soccer field. What you might not know is that in the past, the road crossed the railroad right-of-way and continued to Lawyers Road. In fact, to this day, what I’ll call “West Clarks Crossing Road”–to distinguish it from the segment east of the bike trail–is still featured on maps of the area and exists in one stretch as a walking trail (see Figures 1, 2, and 3).

Figure 1: Clarks Crossing Road west of the W&OD bike trail as it appears on the Fairfax County Map Wizard application.
Figure 2: In general, the area circled in blue is the subject of this post.
Figure 3: The old road is discernible in aerial images taken when tree vegetation is light, reflecting the road’s de facto role as a boundary between properties.

On some early 2023 weekends, with the ground frozen, the vegetation thinned by winter, and the tick threat on hiatus because of the cold, I explored what is left of the old road. First, I poked around where the road had forded across Piney Branch not far from the bike trail. Then, I walked the stretch extending southwest from the ford to Post Road. It was on this second excursion that I encountered the sign in Figure 4 as I emerged onto Post Road. According to the sign, the old road was on the agenda for a late-January meeting of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. With all that as context, then, I’ve written up some notes on the history of “West” Clarks Crossing Road between the W&OD and Lawyers Road.

Figure 4: Fairfax County gives notice of a hearing to discontinue the old road as part of the state road system.

The Names of the Road

First, though, I’ll note that this road segment has been referred to in different ways and by different names over the years. As indicated by today’s map and the sign in Figure 4, the County refers to it as Clarks Crossing Road, just like the segment east of the bike trail. In the early 20th century, local residents and newspaper articles used “Hunts Lane,” named after the family whose property bordered much of the road going back to the Civil War era (see Figure 5). Some of the other references have been generic.  A deed from 1914 refers to “the County road from Beulah Church [on Lawyers Road] to Clark’s Crossing” (S7:137). A 1921 deed refers to a point on “the County Road running by Clarke School House 113.4 feet from the middle of the junction of the Lawyer’s Road and the said County Road….” (V8:358). The deed of dedication for the Carriage Hill subdivision in 1963 merely uses “an old road” (2297:158). The 1979 deed of dedication for the Helmwood Ridge subdivision tidily and helpfully collects multiple names into one source. This deed refers to “a point in the centerline of Clarks crossing Road (formerly known as Old County Road and Hunt’s Lane)” (5249:51).

Figure 5: The road was the eastern boundary of the property once belonging to Noah and Elizabeth Huntt and divvied up among their heirs in 1914. (By this time, the family rendered their surname as “Hunt”). Noah Huntt had died in 1884 and A. (Amelia?) Elizabeth Huntt had died in 1908.

The Origins of the Road

I suspect the road was formally established in the late 1850s as construction reached Vienna for the Alexandria, Loudon & Hampshire Railroad, the original name of the W&OD.  We have some datapoints to narrow it to this timeframe.

–The road did not appear to be in-place as of the early 1840s. In 1841, Joshua and Eliza Gunnell sold 104 acres east of Lawyers Road to Noah Huntt, according to property records and Beth Mitchell’s map of property owners as of 1860. The relevant deed in question makes no allusion to the road, which would eventually be adjacent to the property (G3:166).

–In 1854, Huntt and William T. Clarke acquired the 119-acre property that included the future Clarks Crossing site on the railroad; a small portion of the northwestern extremity of the property would eventually border on the future road (see Figure 6). The deed for this sale refers to “a stake above the old ford of Piney Branch”—a ford that would be an important feature of the future road. However, the deed makes no reference to the road itself (U3:60).

Figure 6: This map identifies the property owners in the vicinity of Clarks Crossing as of 1860 as well as the boundaries of their parcels, superimposed on the Fairfax County real property map of 1981. Produced by Beth Mitchell for the Fairfax County History Commission under a project initiated in 1988 and encompassing the entirety of the county.

–By the late 1850s, however, the road appears to be newly established. In September 1858, when Mary Saunders sold a half-acre parcel in the area to Noah Huntt, the deed referred to what is almost certainly the road. In describing the parcel, this deed leads with, “Beginning at a stake on Piny Branch near a white-oak marked below the ford for the new road, then up the Road [117 feet]….” (my emphasis) (see Figure 7).

Figure 7: In its entirety, the excerpt reads: “she the said Mary C. Saunders has bargained and sold unto the said Noah Hunt, a lot of land on Piny Branch, Beginning at a stake on Piny Branch near a white-oak now marked below the ford of the new road, thence up the Road South nine and a half west nineteen poles….”

After this point, the road features in 19th-century maps of the area (see Figures 8 and 9). I can only speculate about the uses of the road in the 1860s and 1870s. One can imagine Confederate and Union patrols on the road during the early years of the Civil War when control of the Vienna area was in flux. In the war’s later years, perhaps the Confederate partisan forces of John Mosby used the road. Mosby certainly operated in the immediate area. Less than a half-mile up the W&OD from Clarks Crossing, the “Terror by the Tracks” historical marker notes that in 1864, Mosby executed an alleged Union spy nearby. According to histories of the W&OD by Ames Williams and Herbert Harwood, the rail line west of Vienna took a beating during the war—for instance, all its bridges west of town were destroyed. By January 1866, however, the line had reopened out to Hunters Mill and today’s Reston. With that, one can imagine families who lived near the western terminus of Clarks Crossing Road at Lawyer’s Road using the road for access to the railroad. If such families had commercial or social business on the Leesburg & Alexandria Pike (today’s Route 7) at Andrew Chapel or perhaps Kenmore, then Clarks Crossing Road west of the railroad could’ve been an early leg of a journey by horse. 

Figure 8: General Irvin McDowell came up short for the Union at the First Battle of Bull Run, but his command left us an invaluable resource in the form of a “Map of N. Eastern Virginia and Vicinity of Washington.” From the Library of Congress.
Figure 9 gives a sense of Clark Crossing Road’s place in the local transportation network as of the late 1870s. From the G.M. Hopkins map of the Washington area and available at the Library of Congress.

More concretely, the establishment of new school and a new church in the area in the last quarter of the 19thcentury would have generated traffic on the road. 

A Route to School

In the mid-1880s, the Providence School District of Fairfax County opened the Clarke School House on Clarks Crossing Road east of the railroad. The school’s students included children from families who lived west of the railroad, for instance the R.L. and Lettie Adams family. The Adams family lived west of Piney Branch and near the road. We know from Fairfax Herald articles that Gertie and Henrietta Adams, two of R.L.’s and Lettie’s daughters, respectively attended and taught at the Clarke School in the early 20th century. The logical route for them to take to the school would’ve begun with West Clarke’s Crossing Road (see Figure 10).  

Figure 10: The base map is from a 1915 topographical map extending from Vienna in the east to Herndon in the west down to Fairfax City in the south.

A Route to Church

Meanwhile, in 1888, the local community founded the Beulah Methodist Protestant Church at the intersection of today’s Beulah Road and Clarks Crossing Road, to the east of the railroad. (The site in our times of the big illuminated star on Beulah Road during the Christmas season). Parishioners who lived west of the railroad out towards Lawyers Road would have used West Clarks Crossing Road as an initial leg of their trip to the church. Then, circa 1902, a lightning strike caused a fire that destroyed the church, according to a history of the nearby Antioch Church. At that point, the Beulah congregation decided to relocate, and they moved to the opposite end of Clarks Crossing Road, at its western terminus. Hugh Gunnell donated an acre on Lawyers Road for the site of the new church, and the relevant deed refers to our road of interest.  Its description of the boundaries of the parcel begins with “a point in the middle of the Lawyer’s Road and in the middle of the County Road running by Clarke’s school House, thence with the middle of the last mentioned Road….” (italics mine). A Fairfax Herald article about the new church location refers to one of the other names used for the road over the years, “Hunts Lane”:  

“The Beulah people will build their new church at the corner of the Lawyers’ road and Hunt’s Lane upon a lot given by Mr. Hugh W. Gunnell” (see Figure 11). 

Figure 11: This is a private residence on private property. From circa 1904 to 1958, however, it housed the Beulah Methodist Protestant Church, according to Fairfax County property records.

With the Beulah Methodist Protestant Church relocated to Lawyers Road, members of the congregation who lived to the east would have had reason to use the western segment of Clarks Crossing Road to get to Sunday services and other activities. For instance, in June 1906, Gertie and May Adams from the R.L. Adams family gave recitations at the church for Children’s Day, according to the Fairfax Herald. The family would have been likely to have traveled on the road to get to or from the event, judging from the road’s location in relation to their home and the church.  

Early 20th Century Woes

Through the first half of the 20th century, the road was a county road, so it was up to Fairfax County to fund it and maintain it—or not. In 1903, the country spent $23.37 “on [the] r’d from Vienna to Difficult via Hunt’s,” according to the Fairfax Herald. In 1908, the county paid a member of the Clarke family $38 for work on Hunt’s Lane and a portion of Lawyer’s Road, according to the annual road report published in the Herald. By the mid-teens, the road was suffering from neglect, in the opinion of its users. In the summer of 1919, an anonymous “Committee” asked the Board of Supervisors via a letter to the editor of the Fairfax Herald to “investigate why the Hunt’s lane from Beulah Church on Lawyers’ road to Clark’s Crossing and beyond has not been worked for five years or more, or why not one dollar has been spent upon the road.” The Committee continued: “This road being the only outlet of a score of taxpayers why should they be deprived of all rights and privileges? No one can ride over this road safely on horseback. In the ditches you can bury a horse. Our people are law-abiding taxpayers and should have our road fixed once in a while.” 

Months later, the Committee returned to the pages of the Herald to lament the lack of progress. This time they complained about the road’s unsuitability for the latest means of personal transportation. “As yet Hunt’s Lane from Clark’s crossing to Lawyers Road near Beulah Church, has not been worked. This road has ditches in it that make it almost impassable to travel. More than one automobile has been damaged on this road and had to be dug out by residents….Mr. Supervisors, please get busy and help us. We must have this road fixed up…” (see Figure 12).

Figure 12: The second of two letters to the editor of the Fairfax Herald in 1919 calling attention to the poor condition of the western segment of Clarks Crossing Road.

By the early 1920s, even pedestrians were complaining about the road. “If the supervisor of roads will have Hunt’s Lane worked so that it can be used by pedestrians he will be thanked,” wrote a correspondent to the Fairfax Herald in 1921. Later that year, local residents apparently took the matter into their own hands. “Messrs. Benjamin Trammel and Shelley are building a bridge on the road known as Hunt’s Lane,” according to the Herald. I assume that this was at the creek which is between today’s Post and Carrhill Roads rather than at the ford over Piney Branch, based on the boundaries of the Trammell property at the time (see Figures 13-20). Lewis Benjamin Trammell lived on a property for which the road was the eastern boundary, judging from census and property records. His wife, Minnie E. Saunders Trammell, and her aunt, Mary V. Hunt, were among the beneficiaries of the Noah Huntt partition of 1913. The aunt received the lot with the house, in which the three people then resided together.

Figure 13: When Benjamin Trammell was building a bridge on Hunts Lane in 1921, he was most likely doing so at one of these two sites, judging from the locations of the water courses in the area. Of the two, Option 1 is more likely.
Figure 14: This location corresponds to Option 1 in Figure 13. We are looking across the dry creek bed and down the road to the southwest from a vantage point along the road just northeast of Hunts spring branch.
Figure 15: A modern topographical map centered on where Clarks Crossing Road descends gradually to cross Hunts spring branch before ascending at a greater slope towards Post Road. The colored arrows correspond to the change in elevation illustrated by the arrows in Figure 14. For much of the stretch from the ford, which is off map to the north, the road is roughly paralleling Piney Branch to the east. The road travels along the lower rim of the Carrhill Court high ground to the west and borders the Piney Branch floodplain to the east before it climbs to Post Road.
Figure 16: The northern section of the road, centered on the ford over Piney Branch, as it looked in April, 1937. By 1937, this segment was the most well-defined portion of Clarks Crossing Road west of the W&OD, as hinted at by the lack of definition near the bottom edge of the image, south of the fishhook. This is in stark contrast to today. Today, there is no evidence of the portion of the road north of the ford to Clarks Crossing on the W&OD. From the ford south to the fishhook, some evidence of the road remains to this day, but it is concealed beneath the undergrowth and only walkable at a stoop. A portion of the connecting outlet that runs from the fishhook to the northwest in the 1937 photo is now a trail on Fairfax County parkland bordering the Wendover subdivision. The inset map shows the course of Piney Branch today. In the 1937 image, the loop in the stream (circled) to the immediate west of the ford is more gradual than it is today, judging from a comparison to the inset.
Figure 18 is taken from a vantage point on the southwest side of the ford, looking to the northeast towards Clarks Crossing. Piney Branch runs across the center of the photo. The steep embankment on the righthand side of the photo is on the northern side of the stream and is not suitable for fording today. A large, downed tree crosses the stream and blocks the location that would best correspond to the location of the ford on the 1937 image. The growth on the northern side of the stream is something of a thorny tangle, as one might be able to tell by looking at what’s immediately behind the tree in the center off the photo.
Figure 17 is the opposite viewpoint from Figure 18. It is from the northern side of Piney Branch and the ford and looks to the southwest. Today, this approach remains navigable for someone on foot once one struggles through the brush on the northern side, with a gradual descent from the brush down to the stream, as illustrated with the green arrows. Judging from the 1937 aerial image and various maps, the path for someone crossing the stream would seem to have been in the direction of the blue arrow. However, the downed tree at the top of the photo prevents a crossing today. Moreover, the stream today is deeper at the tree than on either side, perhaps knee-deep or even more. In contrast, the portion of Piney Branch circled in purple is very shallow, only inches less than 24 hours after a rainy day on a recent visit. However, moving past this shallow point today is blocked by the brush immediately above/behind it in the photo and by the downed tree at the upper left.
Figure 19: We are south of Piney Branch looking down the remains of the road as it leaves the ford and extends to the southwest. The vegetation forms a tunnel of sorts. In the winter, it is walkable (stumble-able?) at a stoop.
Figure 20: This 2019 aerial image provides a good overhead view of the the downed tree that blocks the ford at Piney Branch.

By the 1930s, the road was considered to be antiquated, judging from a characterization in a 1939 deed. “Beginning…on the Northeasterly side of Lawyers Road and on the Northwesterly side of an old road running from Beulah Church to Clark’s Crossing…” [my italics]. 

Perhaps because of the county’s neglect, Virginia in 1948 made the road part of the state road system and assigned it as Route 676, the same number held by Clarks Crossing Road east of the W&OD, according to a map of the Fairfax County Secondary System (see Figure 21).  

Figure 21: Hunts Lane is made a part of State Route 676 in 1948. At the time, four houses were apparently along the roadway, according to text on the document. Today, I count 22 houses on properties that border the road. The document was accessed via the package of materials for the 24 January 2023 meeting of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. See Administrative Agenda Item 6.

Fades Away to a Trail

And as a state responsibility the road remained—even as most of the surrounding land was developed in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s as the Carriage Hill, Bridleridge, and Helmwood Ridge subdivisions, and as the road itself evolved into “an unofficial natural-surface pedestrian connection by the surrounding community,” according to a recent characterization by Fairfax County (see Figures 22-24 ).

Figure 22: On a 1957 topographical map, the road is rendered as a dotted line, representing an unimproved dirt road, according to the map’s legend. The map is available online at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Historical Topographic Map Explorer.
Figure 23: In this 1972 aerial image, the pathway for the road remains discernible along its entire length, despite the development to the west.
Figure 24: As of 1976, the road segment north of the Piney Branch ford was still a feature on the ground. The Washington and Old Dominion had ceased operations eight year before and–for this segment–was still five years away from being a paved bike trail.

Remained, that is, until now. On 24 January 2023, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution requesting that Virginia discontinue “the .65-mile portion of Clark’s Crossing Road” from the secondary system of state highways (see Figure 25). Maintenance of the road reverts to the County—presumably to better effect than in the 1910s and 1920s!—with “continued public use of the dedicated ROW [right-of-way,” according to the Board, suggesting that at least some portions of the old road will remain a walking trail available to the public. 

Figure 25 is from the package of materials for the 24 January 2023 meeting of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

The Road As It Looks Today

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4 Responses to Clarks Crossing Road, West of the W&OD: A Short History

  1. Pete Thiringer says:

    Another great bit of research! I knew the road had crossed to the east side at one time, but didn’t realize that it connected to Lawyers at the Beulah Church. I probably walked it a few times without knowing what it was. As I’m sure you know, there are many well-worn trails through the woods in that area.

    I guess I didn’t realize it took that sharp bend to the south when it crossed the railroad. I guess I always figured it went straight across, ran adjacent to the soccer fields, and crossed Piney Branch right at the spot where the current ford exists with the cement pylons (a little bit downstream from the spot you mention as the probable ford). However, I’ve seen that 1937 photo of the area before (Figure 16), so your research seems accurate.

    It’s interesting (and hard to believe) that the crossing and the road on the west side still existed in 1976 when my subdivision (Clark’s Crossing) was built. There actually was a “Clark’s Crossing” at the time the subdivision was named!

    • admin says:

      As always, thanks for the interest and for taking the time to comment. Until this year, I had never taken the trail that breaks to the left after one crosses the current ford with the pylons. That trail eventually intersects with the old road, as your comments indicate. From looking at the historical aerial images, much of that trail corresponds to what had been the outlet road to the R.L. Adams property. It looks like the house survived until the early/mid ’70s. (It’s till there on the 1972 image but appears to be demolished on the 1976 photos).

      • Pete Thiringer says:

        I took a hike down in that area a couple of weeks after reading your article and writing the post above. I took the same route you mention in your response, made a left after crossing Piney Branch over the pylons. You’re correct, there is a very distinguishable intersection when the trail meets the remains of west Clark’s Crossing road. Unlike the trail, the road is sunken slightly with a buildup of large rocks and dirt on either side — unmistakably a road. I followed it up to Post Rd. then back down. It was a bit too overgrown to follow it all the way to the site of the old ford, but maybe I’ll attempt it in the winter.

        Looking again at your photos above, I agree with you on the path being the remains of the curved driveway to the R.L. Adams home. Where would the house itself have been? Maybe on one of the properties at the end of Carrhill Road?

        When I’ve been down there before, I’ve always noted that the vegetation is very different along that section of the trail. There’s bamboo along Piney Branch, as well as some huge stands of Euonymus (a.k.a. Burning Bush) along the trail. These are invasive plants in the woods, but are often planted by homeowners. Maybe the R.L. Adams driveway was lined with burning bush plants?

        • Greg Weaver says:

          Yes regarding that bamboo in there! It’s quite an obstacle to getting at Piney Branch from the southwest side of the stream. When I was poking around down there over the winter, I had the sense that some of the bamboo had been thinned out, and I wondered if the County had worked at it. Further south on the trail near the Town line, it looked like the bamboo at the old Black Pond location had been similarly thinned out.

          Regarding the old road itself, I just ran into the following this afternoon, when I was looking into your question about the Civil War fort at the American Legion hall. It’s from an Insidenova.com article touching on a cavalry skirmish that Union cavalry had with Jeb Stuart on Lawyers Road near the beginning of the war: “The battle began just outside Vienna’s northern border and continued toward Hunter’s Mill….The Confederate unit chase the Union patrol for about a mile north along Lawyer’s Road, then turned right with them along a now-abandoned portion of Clarks Crossing Road and broke off their attack near Beulah and Trap roads….” https://www.insidenova.com/news/fairfax/historical-marker-to-commemorate-civil-war-battle-near-vienna/article_fa611634-c572-53e2-82a6-ca9c5fa79f32.html

          Regarding the location of the R.L. Adams house, exactly right about one of the properties at the end of Carrhill Road. From looking at the 1937 aerial imagery and its overlay of today’s property lines: if you go the cul-de-sac at the end of Carrhill Road, drop to the the second property down from the cul-de sac on the northeast side of the curve in the road. It’s pretty clear that the overlay is “off” too far to the east and too the south, but even when adjusting one’s eyes to bump the modern boundaries up to the north and over to the west, it looks like the house itself still fits within that parcel (assuming the biggest structure is the house rather than a barn).

          As always, thanks for chiming in!

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