Indian Attack, Gunston Hall and Cranford Memorial Methodist Church

Drive down Gunston Rd. a spell and you may catch these three historic markers near the intersection at Old Colchester Rd.

Here's what they say:  

Indian Attack

To the east, on Dogue Neck, "certain unknown indians" attacked the house of Thomas Barton about 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, 16, June 1700, killing eight persons with "arrows and wooden tomahawks." The neighboring Piscataway Indians denied making the attack and blamed the Wittowees. The indians involved probably were angered by colonial encroachment on their land and may have been encouraged by the French. Lt. Col. George Mason wrote Gov. Francis Nicholson that "this murder was the Horriblast that ever was." 

In present-day Fairfax Co., then part of Stafford Co., Mason increased the number of militia patrols, but the indians escaped. 

- Department of Historic resources, 1999

Gunston Hall 

Gunston Hall, four miles to the east, is one of the most noted colonial places in Virginia. The land was patented in 1651 by Richard Turney, who was hanged for taking part in Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. In 1696, the second George Mason acquired it. The house was built in 1755-1758 by the fourth George Mason, revolutionary leader and author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the first Constitution of Virginia. 

-Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, 1968

Louis Chapel/Cranford Memorial Methodist Church

This church is a combination of several structures built on the site of the first Pohick Church (1730-1774), making tis one of the earliest sites of a religious institution in Fairfax County. Louis Chapel, named after a Methodist circuit rider, was built in 1857, and moved from a site nearby in 1952. Cranford Memorial, the main oration of the complex, was constructed in 1900. 

-The Department of Conservation and Historic Resources, 1986