The Elgin Brothers, Clarke School Students

Thrift Bertram “Bert” Elgin and James Carlisle Elgin were the only children of Charles Thrift Elgin and Laura R. Jackson, according to death certificates and census information. Bert, the younger of the two boys, was born in 1895 in Middleburg in Loudon County, according to his death certificate and findagrave.com. Older brother James was born in 1892, according to his death certificate and census information. The records provide conflicting information on the place of birth for James.  His death certificate and some census records list the District of Columbia as James’s place of birth. Other census records list Virginia.

As of the 1900, the boys were living with their mother, maternal grandmother, an adult cousin, and a hired hand in Loudon County, according to the US census. Their father was hospitalized at the time and died in 1902, when Bert was six and James was nine, judging from Charles Elgin’s gravestone. By late 1906, the boys must have been living in the Vienna area, given that they were on the Clarke School honor roll in November of that year.

From the Fairfax Herald, December, 1906.

In 1907, Bert’s and James’s grandmother, Margaretta Jackson, conveyed a portion of her property north of Clarks Crossing Road to the boys’ mother, Laura Jackson Elgin, according to a 2018 study of the property on behalf of the Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA). This property included the late 18th-century house now known as the Lahey Lost Valley House in Lahey Lost Valley Park off Brookmeadow Drive, north of Vienna, according to FCPA. As of 1909, this house was “the only brick mansion between Vienna and Hunter,” according to the Fairfax Herald. As of 1910, Bert and James were attending school and working on their mother’s farm, according to the US census. Bert received a formal education through the 8thgrade, according to the 1940 census. This suggests that by the 1910s, the Clarke School was providing an education one year beyond 7th grade. According to the same census, James attended high school for four years. 

Childhood Home of Thrift and James Elgin. As boys, the Elgin Brothers lived in this house after they moved to the Vienna area in the early 20th century. The house remains to this today on the lot; Fairfax County owns the house and lot. This is a 21st-century image, but photos of the house from decades ago, albeit after it had left the ownership of the family, are available online.

In 1917, both young men married women with local connections. In June, James married Pauline Smith, a descendant of the nearby Adams and Smith families, and went on to have three children with her, according to a Fairfax County marriage register and census information. Bert married Virginia Graham Sinclair in August, 1917.  Virginia was born in DC but by 1910 appeared to be under the care of her great aunt, Rose Graham, who lived near the Elgins. Bert and Virginia had two children, according to the census records. 

James C. Elgin

After high school James had attended Draughan’s Business College and in 1917, he began his career with the DC brokerage, W.B Hibbs and Co., working initially as a bookkeeper, according to the Washington Post and his WWI draft registration.  At the time, James was tall and slender and had brown hair. Over the years, he rose through the ranks at W.B. Hibbs and participated in various professional activities, according to Washington Post articles.  He maintained a relationship with the auditors’ section of the District of Columbia Bankers Association, for instance by serving as the section’s chairman as of 1943, and by 1937 he was the chief auditor for W.B Hibbs.  In 1937, he also was made a partner in the firm and elected to a membership on the Washington Stock Exchange. When Hibbs merged with Folger Nolan Co. in 1953, James remained on board, becoming the vice president of personnel for the consolidated firm, according to the Washington Post.

James C. Elgin, business executive, 1953. Ad in The Evening Star.
The W.B. Hibbs and Co. Building, 725 15th St. NW, 2008. Photo from Wikipedia.

In 1917, as a young professional, James weighed in on a political matter. He joined other local men to endorse political outsider Westmoreland Davis for Virginia governor in the 1917 Democratic Party primary, according to the Fairfax Herald. Capping what was a very eventful year for James, late in 1917 he bought a recently completed townhouse on Iowa Avenue containing “six rooms and bath, hotwater heat, electric lights and brick garage,” according to the Washington Post. 

By 1940, James and his family were living in McLean on Chain Bridge Road, judging from census information. The residence for James’s mother, Laura Elgin, at the time of her death in 1956 was the Iowa Avenue address, suggesting that James continued to own that property after his move to McLean.

James Carlisle Elgin, 1937, from the Washington Evening Star

In 1951, James lost his wife, Pauline, when she died suddenly, according to her obituary. Twenty years later in 1971, James died after he was struck by car while walking across Chain Bridge Road to a bus stop, according to the Washington Post. He was 79.  James Carlisle Elgin is buried in Andrew Chapel Cemetery.  

Thrift “Bert” Elgin

Bert Elgin’s signature on his World War I draft registration, June, 1917. From Ancestry.com.

Whereas in 1920 Bert was still working in farming, by 1930 he was a mechanic and by 1940 a proprietor of a garage in Washington, DC., according to census information and his obituary. From 1940, he worked for more than twenty years as an automotive parts salesman for the same company, according to his obituary. As of 1942, he was 5’ 6” and 154 pounds with black hair and a ruddy complexion, according to his WWII draft registration. He was a member of Antioch Church on Beulah Road. Bert was a fisherman and had an extensive collection of antique and modern firearms, presumably reflecting his interest in hunting.  

As 1920 began, Bert and his family lived at his mother’s residence off Clarks Crossing Road, judging from census information. Not long before, in 2018, his mother and grandmother, conveyed 20 acres of their property to Bert and his wife, Virginia, according to Fairfax County property records. This 20-acre parcel was the portion of the Elgin tract bordering on Clarks Crossing Road. By December 1920, however, Bert had purchased a two-floor, six-bedroom house on Allison Street in the District of Columbia, according to an Evening Star list of real estate transactions. Bert’s family subsequently lived at the Allison Street property, according to census information from 1930 to 1950. Not surprisingly, after the move Bert would still spend time at the Clarks Crossing property or his mother’s place until she moved in 1940, judging from a Washington Post article. The article suggests that Bert would take one of his children squirrel-hunting in woods just off Clarks Crossing Road, a description which would fit his 20-acre parcel, based on Fairfax County aerial photos from 1937.  

Properties Associated with Thrift Elgin Superimposed On Today’s Map: Thrift “Bert” Elgin lived for portions of his childhood and adulthood off Clarks Crossing Road outside Vienna, judging from census, property, and local newspaper records. His grandmother, Margaretta Gunnell Jackson, had inherited Lot 1 (see brown above) of the William H. Gunnell partition in 1856, before she had come of age. In 1872, Margaretta Jackson and her husband acquired the adjacent Lot 6 (see purple boundaries). Thrift was living on this property in the early 1900s, when he was a student at the Clarke School. In 1907, Margaretta conveyed both lots to her daughter/Thrift’s mother, Laura Jackson Elgin, while maintaining a life estate for herself. In 1918, Laura conveyed the 20 acres along Clarks Crossing Road to Thrift (see Thrift’s Lot, blue, above). In 1959, Thrift and wife Virginia sold the northernmost five acres of their 20-acre lot (north of green boundary above). Thrift apparently spent the final years of his life at the Clarks Crossing property. Sources include Fairfax County deeds Y3:314, P4:275, W6:357, 1798:216, and 4054:701.

In the mid-1950s, Bert and wife Virginia suffered the loss of an adult child. As of 1955, Bert continued to reside on Allison Street, according to the marginalia on a deed involving their Clarks Crossing parcel. His death certificate indicates that sometime between the mid-1950s and the early 1960s, he moved back to the Vienna area; an address later associated with his widow indicates it was their parcel on the north side of Clarks Crossing to which they moved. A review of aerial images, topographical maps, and subsequent property deeds suggests that by 1957, Bert and Virginia had a house built on the southwestern side of the property (see below). In 1959, they sold a portion of the 20-acre parcel.  

This 1953 aerial photo indicates that Thrift and Virginia Elgin’s 20-acre property on Clarke’s Crossing Road did not have a house on it as of that time.
This 1957 contour map suggests that a house had been built on a high point on the southwestern end of the Elgin’s 20-acre parcel at some point since the 1953 aerial photo. The brown circle is a rough approximation of the rectangular Elgin parcel, which was exclusively on the west side of Clarks Crossing Road.
The location of the circled house in this 1972 aerial photo corresponds to the location of the structure on the 1953 contour map. Thrift had died a decade earlier, but Virginia, his widow, still owned the house. She sold it within the family in 1974, according to Fairfax County property records. The house survived until the late 1990s, judging from 1997 and 2002 aerial images.

Thrift Bertram Elgin died in 1962 of heart-related causes, according to his death certificate. He is buried in Andrew Chapel Cemetery.  His widow, Virginia, lived some thirty years longer and continued to own a portion of the 20-acre Vienna parcel until her death in 1993. The property finally passed out of the family’s hands with the development circa 1997 of the subdivision that carries the Elgin name, Elgin Manor, judging from Fairfax County property records.  

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