The successful operation of Green Spring Farm, like the success of numerous other farms in Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, was closely linked to the transportation system of these areas. Tidewater Virginia in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries relied mainly on coastal waterways and rivers as avenues of commerce and travel. When roads appeared on maps of Virginia in this period, they followed trails laid down by Indians who, in turn, had taken over the game trails along the ridges of the land. Therefore, by 1750 there was only a basic network of roadways running east-west to the passes in the Blue Ridge and north-south to the colonial capital of Williamsburg along the Tidewater and to the Carolinas through the Piedmont. The eighteenth century development of roads in Northern Virginia emphasized east-west travel for the obvious reason that residents of this area saw their future prosperity more closely linked to the rich resources and fertile lands of the Shenandoah Valley (and through it, perhaps, to the Ohio River) than through connection with the political capitals of the state or the great plantations of the James and York Rivers.[38]
Figure 2. Survey Map, John Halley, 1840. Fairfax County Deed Book H-3, p. 227.
Figure 3. R. R. Farr Survey, Fairfax County Deed Book C-8, p. 448.
As Colchester and Dumfries yielded leadership in commerce to Alexandria and as Loudoun and Fauquier Counties developed centers of commerce and seats of government at Leesburg and Warrenton, the desire for better overland connections with Alexandria gained strength. Public roadbuilding in this period was treated with indifference by both 13 public officials and the public at large. Theoretically carried out by levying a certain amount of labor or materials from the freeholders of the community, the system never produced good roads in Northern Virginia; and, in the early nineteenth century, overland travel generally had permitted them to deteriorate to the point where both foreign and domestic travelers commented unfavorably on them in their travel memoirs.[39] Moreover, in the 1800’s, the new state governments were in no position to provide financial support for local public works and could offer nothing more than their moral support through legislative approval of private roadbuilding by private turnpike companies which raised their capital through the sale of stock and obtained their income by charging tolls for use of the road.
The earliest private turnpike company charter issued by the Virginia Legislature was in 1795 for the “Fairfax and Loudoun Road” from Alexandria to the ford of Little River. This company was never organized, but, in 1802, a somewhat more liberal charter was given to the Little River Turnpike Company. This company’s road was completed in 1806 and immediately led to enactment in 1808 of further legislation authorizing extensions to Fauquier Courthouse.[40]
The Little River Turnpike was located so that Fairfax Courthouse stood approximately half way between Alexandria and the western terminus at Aldie. The courthouse thus served as a logical landmark dividing the upper and lower segments of the road. The turnpike traversed Green Spring Farm at a point about midway in its lower section. Throughout the history of the road, the Moss family appears to have been deeply involved. In 1809, William Moss was appointed and served as one of three commissioners to advertise and receive subscriptions for stock in the company constructing the road from the Little River Turnpike to Fauquier Courthouse.[41]