Belvoir Plantation was the c. 1741 brick manor house of William Fairfax Person William Fairfax b. 1691 · d. 1757 Colonial-era owner and builder of (c. 1741); cousin and Virginia agent of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, the Proprietor of the Northern Neck. President of the … on a 2,200-acre tract on the southern Northern Neck proprietary lands. The estate’s name comes from the French belle voir — “beautiful view” — a reference to the manor’s commanding bluff over the Potomac River, looking south toward Mason Neck and the Potomac’s bend at the mouth of Pohick Bay. ^[1] Source 1 Wikipedia — Belvoir (plantation) Website

William Fairfax built Belvoir on land granted by his cousin Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron — the same proprietary lineage that names Cameron Run, Cameron Street, and the modern 4800 Duke Street Place 4800 Duke Street 164-acre former U.S. Army installation on Duke Street, active 1942–1995. Headquartered the Defense Logistics Agency, the Defense Mapping Agency, and elements of the U.S. Army … parcel in western Alexandria. Belvoir was the social anchor of the colonial Fairfax–Washington circle: Mount Vernon was four miles upriver, and young George Washington Person George Washington b. 1732 · d. 1799 Planter, military commander, and first President of the United States. Master of Mount Vernon from 1761 until his death in 1799, and a regular presence in Alexandria, which he … spent formative years at Belvoir as a guest, surveyor’s apprentice, and intimate of the Fairfax family. Washington’s famous 1758 letter to Sally Cary Fairfax — wife of William’s son George William Fairfax, and the recipient of what is generally read as Washington’s most ardent surviving love letter — was written to Belvoir’s mistress.

Destruction

William Fairfax died at Belvoir in 1757, and the estate passed to his son George William Fairfax. George William and Sally moved to England in 1773 and never returned, leaving Belvoir in the care of caretakers and, increasingly, abandonment. The manor house burned in 1783, in the immediate aftermath of the Revolutionary War, while Sally Fairfax was still nominally proprietor in absentia. The brick walls of the ruin stood for another three decades until lightning struck in 1814, reducing the structure to the foundation traces that survive today. ^[2] Source 2 Mount Vernon — William Fairfax Website

Archaeological survival

The Belvoir Manor archaeological site was added to the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register; the ruins are preserved on the modern Richmond Highway Place Richmond Highway ~8,656-acre U.S. Army installation along Richmond Highway in Fairfax County, established 1917 as Camp A.A. Humphreys, renamed Fort Humphreys 1922, renamed Fort Belvoir 1935 in … U.S. Army installation parcel and are accessible via a National Park Service-maintained trail on the southwest portion of the base. The Belvoir name carried onto the renamed military installation in 1935 — Camp A.A. Humphreys (1917) had become Fort Humphreys (1922) and was renamed Fort Belvoir in explicit recognition of the colonial estate that formerly occupied the parcel. ^[3] Source 3 NPS — Belvoir Manor archaeological site Government record