Clover Hill Farm Manassas Virginia

JPChurch

First Sergeant
Joined
Dec 30, 2016
Location
Manassas VA
I might be posting this thread in the wrong area, I'll let the moderators move it to "contemporary photos/events" if need be. I live about half a mile from the site of the Johnson family farm aka "Clover Hill." I moved to Manassas City in 1988. The Clover Hill farm was still intact and their dairy cows were still out in the fields despite the property already being sold off. The Johnson family had a huge auction selling all the farm equipment that was still functional in their possession. That was really a neat thing to witness. The little roads back in '88 around the farm property and my neighborhood have now been replaced with divided two lane roads, stop signs and traffic lights. My initial reason for going over to what remains of the Clover Hill Farm today was to take pictures of the slave quarters to add to a post on Facebook about Black History Month that I plan to do this weekend.

I thought I'd share these images I took today here on CivilWarTalk. Hope everyone enjoys them. The Manassas Museum is in possession of many artifacts/dug up relics the Johnson family donated. These pics shown attached are of the slave quarters and the Johnson family cemetery. There's one enlarged image of what the farm looked like before it was sold off and donated to the Methodist Church.
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No doubt, as both structures are similar in some aspects. I suspect the builders of both the Clover Hill slave quarters and Stone House used the same source of quarried stone/red bedrock blocks from somewhere in the vicinity of Manassas at the time. Interesting to think which building was built first.
 
No doubt, as both structures are similar in some aspects. I suspect the builders of both the Clover Hill slave quarters and Stone House used the same source of quarried stone/red bedrock blocks from somewhere in the vicinity of Manassas at the time. Interesting to think which building was built first.
Out of curiosity I asked the NP folks if there was any indication where the red rock came from and no one could answer the question. Had to be a place somewhere close I would think. Next time I am over there I will check out the "dump" to look around. They may have filled in with dirt from the incomplete railroad.
 
In between both buildings here (they are about 5-6 miles apart from one another) is the Glen-Gerry Brick plant on Godwin Drive. The plant is about a mile away from my house, it's been there for decades. They used to blast the red bedrock with dynamite, bring in the big chunks, crush them up and make just about anything you can imagine. From what I understand the plant is closing down in a few years. When they used to blast, my house would vibrate a little. It may have been that sometime in the early 1800's the same area was the source of the red bedrock used to construct both the Clover Hill farm slave quarters and the Matthews stone house.
 
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