Bel Air (Woodbridge, Virginia)
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Bel Air
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Bel Air Plantation
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| Location | General Washington Drive, near Dumfries, Virginia |
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| Coordinates | 38°38′25.84″N 77°21′46.28″W / 38.6405111°N 77.3628556°WCoordinates: 38°38′25.84″N 77°21′46.28″W / 38.6405111°N 77.3628556°W |
| Area | 25 acres (10 ha) |
| Built | c. 1740 |
| Built by | Ewell, Capt. Charles |
| NRHP Reference # | 70000823 |
| VLR # | 076-0001 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | February 26, 1970 |
| Designated VLR | December 2, 1969 |
Bel Air is a colonial-era plantation manor located in Woodbridge, Prince William County, Virginia. Built in 1740 as the Ewell family seat, the home was regularly visited by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who was a cousin. It later served as the home of Mason Locke Weems (1759–1825), the first biographer of George Washington and the creator of the cherry tree story ("I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet"). Extraordinarily well preserved for its age, Bel Air was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
Bel Air was originally constructed as an English fort in the 1670's by order of Virginia colonial Governor William Berkeley, who occupied the fort himself in 1673. Upon the stone foundation of the old fort, Captain Charles Ewell (1713–1747) built Bel Air as a tobacco plantation and family seat in the early 1740s. As some of the first settlers in Prince William County, Charles and his brother Bertrand first came to the area from Maryland to establish an iron furnace operation on the Occoquan River. Described by Washington in his journals as a "man of affairs," Charles maintained mill interests in Occoquan together with his brother-in-law, John Balladine. Like other planters in northern Virginia, he sent his harvest to the nearby port of Dumfries to be loaded on ships for Glasgow, Scotland. During this time, Dumfries was a thriving tobacco port, and it easily outstripped in population and importance the rival town of Alexandria, further up the river. As a center of culture, the great families in the area would drive into Dumfries in their chariots to attend balls and "tea drinkings". After organizing a in 1744, Charles built a warehouse and began a successful mercantile business in Dumfries.
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