Living in the heavily wooded Northern Virginia area of Springfield, even in modern times, it's not difficult to envision an era when the Indians were the main human inhabitants: mysterious, hidden hunter/trackers making their way though the forests. Even today, I can look at the woods around me and wonder, "What's in there? Long overgrown homes? Forgotten battlefields? Indian campsites?" Indeed, back in 1988, when I was a Cubmaster, I took my pack on a birding expedition into the forest along a trail near the Hidden Pond Nature Center, and, in the middle of a forested nowhere, came across signs that a home had once existed in the 19th or even 18th century on that spot.
Enter Randy Becker, a history-minded fellow who lives nearby. A fellow who takes a lively interest in the place where he lives, he once led me and my wife to a little expedition to the confluence of the Pohick Creek and the Middle Run, in what is today the Middle Valley subdivision. In 1729 there was a (probably Algonquian) Indian camp there!
He knows this thanks to a March 8th, 1729 deed describing part of the area. (Back then, the area now known as Fairfax County hadn't acquired that name yet - it was still Stafford County.)
A google map shows the site:
Right there, behind what is now Chars Landing Court. You can pass by the area if you hike the Gerry Connolly Cross County Trail.
A google satellite image doesn't show much - the area is heavily wooded.
Do the residents of Chars Landing Ct. ever see ghostly campfires in the woods behind their homes?
