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An Area Long-Coveted

Long Branch Plantation is nestled at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the Shenandoah Valley (named for the Shenandoah River which flows through the valley). Long before the English came to settle Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding regions had been home to various Native American tribes for twelve thousand years. These tribes included the  Iroquois, Shawnee, Catawba, Cherokee, Delaware, and Susquehannock nations. In fact, it is speculated that the name “Shenandoah,” comes from a forgotten Native American term meaning “Beautiful Daughter of the Stars.” Though bearing a romantic name, the Shenandoah Valley was used mostly as an uninhabited buffer-zone between warring Native American tribes at the time of English settlement.

As Found in the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

1736/7 survey of Lord Fairfax’s Lands
Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

 

Over five million acres of the Shenandoah Valley was inherited by Lord Thomas Fairfax of Cameron in 1719. Lord Fairfax did not personally live on any of this property, instead, he allowed farmers and others to settle the land as long as they paid taxes to him. When Fairfax learned that his intermediary, Robert “King” Carter, had been retaining a large portion of the taxes collected for himself, Lord Fairfax came to oversee his property for the first time in 1732. Lord Fairfax discovered that Carter had kept the tax money because Carter declared that Fairfax had mistakenly inherited some of Carter’s family property. This misunderstanding was a result of unresolved declarations from King Charles II and Virginia Governor William Gooch. King Charles II appropriated the land to Fairfax while Governor Gooch argued that the lands belonged to northern settlers including the Carter family. With astoundingly little conflict — though he would later employ 16 year old George Washington to survey the rest of his holdings — Lord Fairfax relinquished the land to Robert “King” Carter and the settlers. This decision allowed the Carters to remain on the land that would eventually become Long Branch Plantation, and the plantation would stay under ownership of direct descendants of Carter until 1957.

Casey Marion, Long Branch Plantation Intern

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