Rose Garden

Photos

Bluemont Park Rose Garden | Photo 02

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In the late 1700’s, surveyor, George Washington, road his horse along the Four Mile Run that empties into the Potomac River near where the Reagan National Airport is located today. It is about half the distance between Washington DC and Alexandria Virginia to the south. I can imagine George on horseback, possibly accompanied by an assistant, ambling through the brushy creek side. On the north side of the creek, the terrain slopes upward and steeply in spots through woods. To the south, it’s the same, so the creek is in a valley.

George is swatting insects, as the place seems infested. Along the way, he encounters wild turkeys, and an occasional fox and skunk.

When thirsty, he got off his horse and filled his canteen from the stream as the water was clean and pure from the stony bed. He is busy surveying, laying his marks, and recording measurements and drawing a map. He has to be careful while doing this because the woods are full of bears and wolves too. In fact, he might run across some Native Americans that he would call Indians.

His clothing in the spring and summer was made from cotton and from deer skins. He would like to shed his shirt due it being hot, but, the bugs would bite him. He would get hungry. He probably had some minimum supplies with him, but most likely, he would use his rifle to take a rabbit, squirrel, or turkey. He didn’t want to waste a lot of time cleaning and cooking so he most likely stuck with small game. Sometimes, he trapped fish from the stream, though there weren’t that many after the trout left for the deep water.

When he got a couple of miles inland from the Potomac, he was in a spot where in 10-15 years, his son would build a mill. It would be in the vicinity of his future tailor, William Carlin where he would live, as his daughter after him. Her old log cabin is still there to this day and so is his, called the Ball-Sellers house. It is in the neighborhood where the Ball family had a farm too, after which the neighborhood, Ballston would be named.

George munched on wild raspberries, red and black, when in season. He also found cherry trees. He came upon a part of the stream where beavers had made a pond. That beaver pond is still there today. As he traveled further he came upon land on which it is reported he might have wanted to settle. That area would later be affiliated with the Custis family, associated with his wife’s people (and Robert E. Lee).

George would not know what would come of this area, that a civil war skirmish would be fought here, and that eventually, there would be a park system and a rose garden. So the news is that visitors can come to Bluemont Park, see the roses, and walk around to discover historical artifacts like the one shown in the accompanying pictures. (Bluemont park was named after Bluemont College in Kansas based on a Methodist missionary having passed through here who later became the college President.)

The following url is a link to a newspaper article describing William Carlin, George Washington’s tailor.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=20020419&id=_TEzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lwgGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6818,4870179

Historical dwellings in the area are described at the following link.

http://www.arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/learn/sites_properties/dwellings.html