Est. 1805 · George Washington Family · Federal Architecture · Quaker Free-Labor Farm · National Trust First Site
Woodlawn was carved from the southwestern portion of George Washington's Mount Vernon holdings as a wedding gift in 1799 to his nephew Major Lawrence Lewis and Lewis's bride Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis Lewis, who was Martha Washington's granddaughter and had grown up at Mount Vernon. Construction of the mansion, designed by William Thornton, the architect of the U.S. Capitol, began in 1800 and was completed by 1805.
The Lewis family operated Woodlawn as a working agricultural property until financial difficulties in the 1840s. The estate was sold in 1846 to a group of Quakers from New Jersey, who established a model free-labor farm at a moment when most of Virginia's plantation economy still depended on slavery. The Quaker tenancy substantially changed the agricultural use of the land and is part of the site's interpretation today.
Woodlawn was acquired by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1957 and was the organization's first historic site. In 1964 the Frank Lloyd Wright Pope-Leighey House, originally built in nearby Falls Church in 1940, was relocated to the Woodlawn grounds to save it from highway construction. The two properties are operated together as a single visitor experience.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlawn_(Alexandria,_Virginia)
- https://savingplaces.org/places/woodlawn
- https://alexandriaghosts.com/the-ghosts-of-woodlawn-plantation/
- https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/a-fuller-picture-of-history-emerges-at-virginia-plantation-of-nelly-custis-lewis/3623803/
Phantom smellsTouching/pushingLights flickeringPhantom soundsObject movement
Woodlawn's haunted reputation rests on small, repeated sensory reports rather than any single dramatic story. The most often-cited account is a sweet floral scent reported in the air near the English boxwoods, which folk tradition attributes to Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis Lewis, said to be taking a walk on the grounds.
Inside the mansion, visitors and staff describe an upstairs bedroom in which an unseen hand is reported to tap the shoulders of guests. Lights in the master bedroom on the ground floor are described as cycling on and off without explanation. A separate report describes the sound of organ music attributed by tellers to a Wurlitzer that does not exist in the house, and a portrait that does not stay reliably hung on the wall. A well on the property has been called, in one folk-tradition source, a conduit to the underworld.
The National Trust does not promote paranormal programming at Woodlawn. The reports collected by Alexandria-area ghost-tour operators present the entities as benign and tied principally to the Lewis family's residence. The legends are folkloric rather than documented in primary archival material.
Notable Entities
Eleanor "Nelly" Parke Custis Lewis
