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TRAVELOGUEFairfax, Virginia

History and chocolate.... a delicious combination

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Story and photos by Melissa Wolcott and Al Martino

At different times of the year, differ-ent places in our great and gloriouscountry shine, and in early spring it is

the Washington DC area, referring, ofcourse, to the celebration of the magnifi-cent blooming cherry blossoms. Peoplefrom all over pick this time of year to visitour nation’s capital to see it in it’s fullglory. However, for a lot of folks, stayingin Washington is a bit pricey, so theycheck out nearby Alexandria, which hasalso become costly. Enter Fairfax — anoverlooked gem, which is a hop, skip, andjump to the capital city, yet is charmingand affordable. A mere 18-minute trainride has you in the heart of bustlingWashington, but you can come back to alovely “small town,” with friendly peopleand lots of history.

We visited Fairfax in February, which,granted, is not the best time of yearweather wise — however, it is when theyhave their annual Chocolate Festival, soobstacles such as ice storms, don’t seemthat important!

We flew into Washington Dulles Airporton United Airlines from Tampa, and fromthere, it is only 15 miles to Fairfax —“The Heart of Northern Virginia” (accor-ding to their Chamber of Commerce.) Wechecked into the Comfort Inn UniversityCenter, which is in a good location for

getting around town and visiting othersites — and, as it’s name intones, it’s quitecomfortable! It also offers free shuttleservice to Dulles Airport.

We decided to explore what the city ofFairfax had to offer before we venturedbeyond it’s borders to other sites. Our tripturned out to be kind of a “George

Washington Trail,” not planned that way,but an interesting turnout nonetheless.

As a young man, George Washington(hereafter referred to as GW), worked as asurveyor in Fairfax County, and later on,as a lawyer. Although Fairfax County hashad a courthouse for the last 258 years,the current one was built in 1800, andremained pretty much the same until theCivil War, when it was occupied alter-nately by both the Union and Confederatetroops. It was used as a military headquar-ters and a lookout station, with the UnionArmy being the last inhabitants. It wasgutted during war times, and many records

were lost or destroyed. The first officercasualty of the Civil War occurred on thecourthouse grounds. Confederate CaptainJohn Quincy Marr was killed during askirmish between Union cavalry and theConfederate Warrenton Rifles who werethen occupying the courthouse grounds.Following the war, the courthouse wasrepaired and restored, and through theyears went through several “moderniz-ation” periods. In the 1960s historiansdecided to return it to it’s original appear-ance (keeping electricity and air condi-tioning, of course). At over 200 years, itstill serves as a courthouse today. GW andhis wife, Martha’s, wills are located there.

he Fairfax Museum is located in theoldest brick schoolhouse in Fairfax

County (1873), and now provides edu-cational information, and serves as a

Civil War museum. They have numerousletters and diaries of Union soldiers ondisplay. Since we were there during thetown’s Chocolate Festival, the museumwas equating chocolate with romance, andtelling the story of the romance betweenAntonia Ford (accused Confederate spy)and Joseph Willard (Union soldier). As amatter of fact, the tale is a town favorite,and we were treated later on to a reenact-ment at the Fairfax ArtsCenter with costumedcharacters readingfrom Antonia and

Joseph’s letters. Thestory is too long to

go into here, but youcan read all about it at

the website:http://home.att.net/~mysmerelda/antonio-spy.html.

Currentlyundergoingrestorationis the 1858BlenheimEstate,whichincludes afamilycemetery.Five gen-erations of

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Comfort Inn

Fairfax County Courthouse

Fairfax Museum

Antonia andJoseph

Civil War Graffiti in Blenheim.

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TRAVELOGUE Cont inued

the Willcoxson family lived in the home,which was bought from them by the cityin 1999. It had been used by Union sol-diers as a convalescent home, and stillamazingly retains walls full of their graf-fiti on the 2nd floor. They are aiming for aMay 1, 2005 opening to coincide with thecity’s Civil War Weekend.

Another historic home is the oldest inFairfax, the 1812 Ratcliffe-Allison House.It was built by Richard Ratcliffe to theoriginal specifications of the town, whichwas “at least 16-feet square with a brick orstone chimney.” Ratcliffe eventually soldit to a shoemaker, and the house still has alot of shoemaker artifacts in it. In 1824 thehome was added on to by the Allisons, butthe original structureremains.

The oldest Catholicchurch in FairfaxCounty is the 1859 St.Mary’s Church, but thereally interesting his-tory of the church isit’s connection toClara Barton. Clara

(real name Clarissa) was the first femalefederal employee. She was a clerk whenthe Civil War broke out, and quit her jobto help out with soldier’s medical needs.In 1862 she gained approval to care for thesick and wounded, and opened the field ofnursing to women for the first time.During the war, the church was being usedas a Union field hospital, and all the pewswere removed and used as firewood. Afterthe war, “The Angel of the Battlefield”continued with her medical concerns, andwent to Europe. She got involved with theRed Cross there, and founded it in theU.S. in 1881. The church was restored toit’s original form in 1930, and is still inuse today.

Close by St. Mary’s is the Fairfax

Station Railroad Museum. The FairfaxDepot, built in 1850 by Irish immigrants,played an important role in the Civil Waras it was the lifeblood of the Union army.It was said that Ms. Barton wasalways the first one on any trainthat pulled into the station,bearing bandages and food forthe soldiers. The museumhouses Civil War, Red Cross,and historic railroading memo-rabilia along with a variety of

artifacts found in andaround the old station.

e were supposed to visitthe 1799 SullyPlantation,which soundedlike a lovelyafternoon stepping backinto a time of southerncharm, but our visit wascanceled due to veryinclement weather. It wassuggested that we go to theNational Firearms Museuminstead. Huh? We bothhave zero interest in guns,but being good sports,went along with the plan.

To our total shockand awe, we lovedit! It is probably thebest designed

museum ofany sort wehave everbeen to.Every gunever con-ceived byman fromthe begin-ning (oldestgun is from1350) up tothe presentday is dis-played. There are over 2,000 guns

in 14 galleries, each one presented in anextremely informative way. Every gun hasa number next to it, and a computer data-base nearby with corresponding numbers

telling anything you could ever want toknow about the gun. The museum’s layoutis superb, the lighting is perfect, and thepresentation is fascinating. These are notreplicas, all guns are original, with one ortwo exceptions, which are noted. We bothavoided the hunting section, but there wasone for such enthusiasts. Especially ofinterest (to us) was Napoleon’s gun, JohnAlden’s “Mayflower” gun, the 40’s gang-ster era guns, Buffalo Bill and Annie

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Clara Barton

St. Mary’s Church

Fairfax StationRailroad Museum

Gun cases & computer database

The MayflowerGun

Buffalo Bill Cody’s gun

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Oakley’s guns, and of course, GW’spistols.h, chocolate! The two-day ChocolateLover’s Festival is held in Fairfaxevery year around Valentine’s Day,

and the whole town seems to get involved.Fairfax is not a big chocolate producingarea, so there isn’t really any regional sig-nificance to the event. It was developed as

a

joint effort of the City, the Chamber ofCommerce, the Merchants Association,and the university to draw visitors. Anddraw it does, with over 8,000 peopleattending. Each year a charity is chosen,and a portion of the proceeds goes to it.

Among the events that take place are:the Taste of Chocolate, featuring chocolatevendors selling their wares to taste andpurchase; the Chocolate Challenge, an artsextravaganza where the medium is choco-late; The Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast, fea-turing chocolate chip pancakes; Historicreenactments; children’s activities; special

events at the Regional Library; a craftshow; and open houses at historic build-ings — most are accessible by a free shut-tle running all day. There’s even an annualChocolate Lover’s Cookbook for sale,which is loaded with recipes submitted by,well...chocolate lovers. You can submityour own favorite recipe for next year’sbook, with proceeds going to charity.Check out their website below. We got akick out of the location of the Taste ofChocolate being right next door to theWeight Watcher’s building — which did-n’t seem to see much activity that week-end! Even though it was a freezing coldweekend, hearty souls lined up around theblock to get into the Taste of Chocolate,which took up three floors of the Town

Hall. So much chocolate, so little time!

enturing outside the city of Fairfax,one has to visit GW’s home, Mt.

Vernon. We were there many years ago,and expected to see a lot of changes to

the landscape surrounding the home andacross the Potomac — condos, industry,etc. — but were absolutely amazed to seeit just as it was years ago, and actually,very like it was during GW’s time. This is

all thanks to the Mt. Vernon LadiesAssociation, which bought the home andgrounds from GW’s grand-nephew in1856 for $200,000 (about $4 million in

today’s money), and the National ParkService set aside 4,000 acres across thePotomac to preserve the natural settingGW would have looked out over. TheLadies found old furniture from the timeperiod and furnished it.

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George Washington’sMt. Vernon

Mt. Vernon farm horses

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According to our guide, GW was 22when he inherited the house and farmupon the death of his brother’s wife. Heexpanded and improved on the farm dur-ing the years, growing first tobacco, thenwheat. He also had fisheries and madewhiskey (why not, with all that wheat). Inthe 45 years he lived there, he was onlyphysically there for 20 years on and off.He only came home once duringRevolutionary War time (gone 8 1/2years), and his wife, Martha, would packup and camp with him every winter, bring-ing supplies and traveling through enemyterritory to get to him. They were marriedfor over 40 years, and when GW died of athroat infection, Martha closed off theirbedroom and used another bedroom forthe remaining two years of her life. Theyare both buried in a mausoleum on thegrounds.

About 30% of their belongings (inclu-ding GW’s famous dentures) remain in thehouse today, recovered through the yearsby bequests and auctions. The paintings inthe dining room were all commissionedby GW , with waterway themes. There is a

key to the Bastillein GW’s study thatLafayette gave him,because he felt thathe was the Fatherof Liberty. It wasLafayette influencethat caused GW towant to abolishslavery, and afterthe war he didn’tbuy any moreslaves. Nine presi-dents owned slaves,and GW was theonly one who freed

them in his will upon Martha’s death.However, Martha freed them herselfbefore she died. In fact, some descendantsof GW’s slaves worked at Mt. Vernonuntil a few years ago.

We enjoyed a little story our guide toldabout a visitor to Mt. Vernon a few yearsback: A little old man showed up, and wasanxious to see GW’s boots in the study.He said his great-grandpappy was in theCivil War, and came to see the recentlyopened Mt. Vernon on furlough. At thetime there was a 25¢ charge to see thestudy, and another 25¢ to see GW’s bed-room. He only had 25¢, so chose to seethe bedroom, and when no one was look-ing, sneaked into the study and tried onGW’s boots. He got caught and wasthrown out. As the little old man wasenjoying looking at the boots his ancestorhad tried on, the guide didn’t have theheart to tell him they were never GW’sboots, just boots from the period.

Of all the historic homes in our country,Mt. Vernon is one of the most importantand wonderful, as you can stroll thegrounds and still see it much as GW did.

Thank you, Mt. Vernon Ladies!e went from the old to the new withour visit to the brand-spanking-newNational Air and Space Museum in

the Udvar-Hazy Center, located next toDulles Airport. Named for it’s principlebenefactor, this is a spectacular showcasefor some 82 very significant aircraft (withexpansion plans to house 200 over thenext five years). Only 15% of what theSmithsonian owns fit into the downtownWashington Air and Space museum,which prompted the opening of this $311million one. A shuttle runs from theWashington’s downtown mall every 1 1/2hours. In addition to the aircraft displayed,

they will eventually have a facility wherevisitors can watch restorations going on.The facility’s size is that of three footballfields long, by ten stories high, and 250feet wide. Each truss can hold 20,000 lbs.,so a lot of the aircraft are viewed “flying”.

One of the standout exhibits is theLockheed SC TIA Blackbird that flies at2,000 MPH (a rifle bullet goes 3,200MPH). It is the fastest plane ever built,and can go from L.A. to Washington in1:04 hours. It has to fly halfway pastWashington towards Bermuda to make theturn to land! The Blackbird lands at 180knots, and needs 10,000 feet of runway to

WMt. Vernon entrance

Lockheed SC TIA Blackbird

Planes are suspendedfrom the ceiling

Planes are suspendedfrom the ceiling

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Blenheim Estate 703-273-5452;www.ci.fairfax.va.us

Cattleya 703-934-8880;www.cattleyathairestaurant.comChocolate Lover’s Festival -www.chocolatefestival.net

Comfort Inn University Center, Fairfax 800-228-5150; www.comfortinn.com

Connaught Place 703-352-5959;www.connaughtplacerestaurant.com

Fairfax Arts Center 3949 Chain Bridge Rd.,Fairfax, VA

Fairfax City www.ci.fairfax.va.usFairfax County CVB www.visitfairfax.orgFairfax County Courthouse - Not open for

tours, can be viewed by appointmentthrough Fairfax Museum and Visitor’sCenter

Fairfax Museum and Visitor’s Center 703-385-8414

Fairfax Station Railroad Museum 703-278-8833; www.fairfax-station.org

Mama’s 703-385-9775;www.mamasitalianrestaurant.com

Mt. Vernon - www.mountvernon.orgNational Firearms Museum 703-267-1600;

www.nrahq.org/museumRatcliffe-Allison House 703-385-8414St. Mary’s Church

www.stmaryofsorrows.orgUdvar-Hazy 202-357-2700;

www.nasm.si.eduUnited Airlines 10800-241-6522;

www.united.com

If You Go...

land. At 104 feet long, it weighs 80,000lbs., with the fuel weighing half that.When it’s fuel get depleted, it is refueledin the air for another 40,000 lbs.

Some other notable aircraft on displayare: The Enola Gay (the plane thatdropped the bomb on Hiroshima thatended WWII); A Lufthansa “Junkers”plane (like the one used in “Casablanca”and “Indiana Jones”); A 1918 WWICaudron G4; Theshuttle Enterprise(sister ship to theColumbia), alongwith the GeminiCapsule, and toomany more to men-tion here.

Since the museumis located next toDulles Airport, theybuilt a tower where you can watch planestaking off and landing. It also has anIMAX Theater, and some flight simulatorsfor further enjoyment

.ack in Fairfax, dining is a delight,with a lot of different ethnic cuisinesto choose from, such as Thai,Korean, Irish, French, Persian,

Italian, and many more. We got out of

the “chain” restaurant mentality and triedsome familiar, and some new (to us) tastetreats.

Connaught Place ishome to superbnorthern Indian cui-sine, served in a sim-ple and elegantambiance. GeneralManager, SamSantosh, is a gra-cious as can be, andattentive to his guests. The food, of coursecontains the spices India is famous for, butis served here subtly and interestingly. TheChicken Tikka Masala, and Palak Paneerare particularly memorable.

Mama’s is a 60-year old restaurant inWashington, and has been in it’s currentlocation in Fairfax since 1986. Mama(Margarita Castro), at 86, still comes towork once a week. One of her standout

dishes is her Boulabaise with shrimp, scal-lops, and crabmeat in wine sauce overlinguine.

We were told for Thaifood, we must go toCattleya, and we werenot led astray. The res-taurant is of simpledecor, but the food isoutstanding. Weordered Cattleya FriedRice, which is a house

special consisting of fried rice, shrimp,onions, cashew nuts and carrots, and itturned out to be delicious.

n 2005, Fairfax will be celebratingit’s bi-centennial. Sounds like a goodtime to attend one of their celebra-

tions, and if you have a real sweettooth, wear a warm coat and check out

their Chocolate Festival in February.

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Delicious Cattleya Thai dinner