Harrison Ownership
Pierson and Harrison divided the Huntley tract on March 11, 1871,[42] and by the time the Hopkins Atlas was published in 1879, the house was listed clearly as "A.W. Harrison, 'Huntley'."[43]
In 1875 "A.F.B.", evidently a correspondent for the Syracuse (N.Y.) Journal, visited Huntley, and on July 25th filed a dispatch to the Journal. The story indicated much about life at Huntley during the era, including the marks left by the Civil War and the life of the Northerners who had moved to the South:
To come to Huntley you take the steamer from Washington to Alexandria. The cars run hourly or nearly so, but the river ride is more pleasant. If you have been to Alexandria at any time since the century opened, you will recognize the place. Many things change in three score years and fifteen, but Alexandria is not one of them. It is the same yesterday and today. Your hospitable friends at Huntley will meet you on the wharf, and you shall have a charming ride through the Fairfax fair fields for four miles, until you reach the Old Dominion plantation of Judge Mason. It joins on the south Mt. Vernon, which is plainly visible from the ancient family residence of the Masons, now the home of an enterprising eastern gentleman, who has a fondness for agriculture on a grand scale. The house stands boldly on a hill spur, looking over broad acres of corn, rye, wheat, oats, and fertile meadows—a sight to see. Beyond, in plain vision, rolls the Potomac. Vessels of many kinds—by sail and by steam—are going to and from the city of Washington.... We took a walk today over the great farm. I dare not say how many were the acres of corn standing eleven and twelve feet high, with tasseled ears. Our host had us through the meadows, going like Boaz of old among his men. He speaks well of the ex-slaves, and of their service. Among them I met a Washington and an Andrew Jackson....
As we walked on into shady woods we came upon an old encampment of our Union Forces in the war. If fruit and berries were as abundant then as now, the boys in blue had a good time in their season. Nor could the weather have been peculiarly trying. At night we get the west winds from off the Alleghanies, and at times the delicious coolness of the sea-side is rivaled. I counted as many as thirty open graves here from which the forms of those who had been buried had been taken away. Trees are growing in the places of the tents, and time is fast sweeping away the marks of war.
The Southern people are not considered by these northern farmers especially unfriendly. There is little social intercourse, however, because the women got so thoroughly mad, that they will never get over it in this world.... Nevertheless, there is such a sprinkling of Yankees in these parts that life here has its social attractions.
The farmers' clubs meet statedly to picnic, to discuss, and to prove that the lines have fallen to them in pleasant places. And a better home for a farmer can scarcely be imagined. The winter is short; the spring early; the summer not oppressive, and the autumn continuous, rich and glorious. The people catch the inspiration and are "given to hospitality." One could do much worse than to live at Huntley. As for us, we are coming again.
Figure 5. Detail, G.M. Hopkins, Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Washington, Philadelphia, 1879. p. 71.