![Minor's hill historic marker](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Minor%27s_hill_historic_marker.png)
Minor's Hill is a geographic eminence located in the western tip of
Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a County (United States), county in the Virginia, Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the Washington, D.C., District of Co ...
. Its summit rises to 459 feet (139 meters) above sea level which makes it the highest point in the county. The hill is named after a man named George Minor who lived there at the time of the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
.
Location
Minor's Hill straddles the border of Arlington County and
Fairfax County, Virginia
Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. ...
. While generally conical in shape, the hill is broad and sprawling, and its summit is relatively flat and broad. Its highest point occurs in Arlington.
A local stream called
Four Mile Run
Four Mile Run is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 15, 2011 stream in Northern Virginia that starts near Interstate 66, at Gordon Avenue in Fairfax County and pro ...
defines the hill's southern and southwestern extent. Mount Daniel (472 feet) is to its west, Mackey's Hill (171 feet) is to its north, and
Upton's Hill (410 feet) is to its east. Its location overlooks the City of
Falls Church
Falls Church is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Washington metropolitan area.
Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Churc ...
on the opposite side of Four Mile Run, 1.4 miles to its south.
The hill is occasionally identified as Minor Hill and Minors' Hill, and during the American Civil War often appeared in newspaper accounts and soldiers' letters as "Miner's Hill".
History
Prehistoric and Colonial Eras
Minor's Hill was well known to local
Native Americans in Northern Virginia prior to European colonization. The Indians used an important
trail
A trail, also known as a path or track, is an unpaved lane or small road usually passing through a natural area. In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, a path or footpath is the preferred term for a pedestrian or hiking trail. Th ...
linking the Little Falls of the Potomac River with what is now the city center of Falls Church, where it entered the village as Little Falls Street. The trail wound around the northern and eastern sides of Minor's Hill.
English colonists founded Falls Church in 1732, choosing as its location a place that was approximately one day's horseback ride from the
Potomac River
The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...
. The hill was afterward settled by the Minor family. Prior to this the hill did not have a formal name.
War of 1812
![Burning of Washington 1814](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Burning_of_Washington_1814.jpg)
In 1814, during the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
, a British fleet ascended the Potomac River to Washington, and a British army invaded the city from the east. Colonel Minor of Minor's Hill and his 700-man Virginia Militia 60th Regiment were summoned on August 23, 1814 from Falls Church to Washington, which they were assigned to defend. However, due to bureaucratic bungling among War Department officials they were not sent to help defend the approaches to Washington at
Bladensburg, Maryland nor did many of them come armed.
As events at the
Battle of Bladensburg worsened, government officials began evacuating the city. At that time the
Washington Navy Yard
The Washington Navy Yard (WNY) is the former shipyard and ordnance plant of the United States Navy in Southeast Washington, D.C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy.
The Yard currently serves as a ceremonial and administrativ ...
was an important fleet center, and its
gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). ...
was hurriedly moved across the bridges into Virginia, and brought to Falls Church for safekeeping, protected by a six-man guard dispatched by Colonel Minor.
Government officials, including President Madison and his wife Dolley, also fled the city.
British troops torched Washington, burning it to the ground. The conflagration lit the nighttime skies at Falls Church, where a young refugee from Alexandria later recalled being awakened and taken outside to see Washington burn. "At first I thought the world was on fire. Such a flame I have never seen since."
The Civil War
Minor's Hill's next brush with history occurred during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. The war was devastating for Falls Church and Minor's Hill, where Union and Confederate lines ebbed and flowed with abandon throughout the war. Each side insisted in loyalty from local residents, who found themselves living within the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
, or the United States of America, as troops came and went and each side's military fortunes waxed and waned.
![1865 Washington](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/1865_Washington.jpg)
The Minor family were secessionist—meaning they were pro-Confederate, and supported Virginia's bid to leave the Union—and clandestinely supported the
Confederate Army
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
and its movements throughout the war. At the beginning of the war Colonel Minor, then said to be 80, fled his home for the safety of Virginia's interior. When it was occupied by Union troops they found his War of 1812 orders, signed by Secretary of State
James Monroe, directing him to the defenses of Washington at Bladensburg. It was a document "he certainly must prize," as one report put it.
Confederate raids from Falls Church went as far east as Balls' Cross Roads—modern
Ballston—and many events took place in the territory surrounding the base of the hill. But in September 1862 a second calamitous loss in battle at Manassas forced the
Union Army
During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...
to retrench and pull its forces toward Washington to protect the capital. Seven regiments encamped on Minor's Hill, establishing Camp Barnard, Camp Bettie Black, Camp Burnham, Camp Cameron, Camp Carl Schurz, Camp Cromwell, Camp Owen, among several smaller encampments. Each of these camps developed into veritable cities.
During the war Union troops built a tall
observation tower atop Minor's Hill, and also ascended from the hill in hot-air balloons to gain better views of Confederate movements in Fairfax County. Several photographs and drawings survive which depict the tower, as well as military parades and also several of the military camps. The only full-color
lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
created in the Falls Church area during the Civil War depicts Camp Owen, the camp of the 11th Rhode Island Infantry Regiment. It shows approximately 100 tents, in ten neat lines of ten tents each, as well as regimental headquarters tents. Of particular interest: a line of wooden huts may be seen—the same huts described in letters written by the soldiers who constructed them. The wood was removed from surrounding farms. (The lithograph is reprinted in black and white in the book, ''
'' by Bradley E. Gernand, on page 180, but also is published in full color as the glossy cover of the book. The original lithograph now resides in the Virginia Room of the Mary Riley Styles Public Library in Falls Church.)
Soldiers from the Minor's Hill camps built their lodgings using wood they took from area farmers—they dismantled miles of wooden fencing; barns; even homes. Farmers felt these deprivations severely.
By the middle of the war Minor's Hill was bound into the military
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
network. A line connected it with
Fort Ethan Allan at
Chain Bridge (three miles, with connections to Washington via Fort Corcoran, using four wires), and to Hall's Hill in eastern Arlington County (two miles, using one wire). Upton's Hill was also connected to Fort Ethan Allan (five miles, with connections on to Washington using six wires), so it was firmly and securely bound into the communications network, probably by the summer of 1863, when the camps closed and the soldiers were transferred south and west to other theaters of the war.
![Minor's hill wide](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Minor%27s_hill_wide.png)
The Modern Era
After the civil war the residents of Falls Church and Minor's Hill rebuilt, and prospered. By 1891, when a Washington ''Evening Star'' newspaper reporter visited, Falls Church was neat and tidy. Ascending Minor's Hill he could see "almost a bird's-eye view of Falls Church, which nestles cozily at its base." He could also clearly see the shaft of the Washington Monument and the Episcopal Seminary in Alexandria. Local residents told him that in winter, when leaves were off the trees, the Soldier's Home in northern Washington, D.C. could also be seen. These views are not available today due to the hill's tree cover.
On the eastern side of the hill the reporter came across the ruin of the old brick mansion of George Minor, the hill's original owner. His family was splintered by the war, and lost much. The home site was now owned by others.
[Washington ''Evening Star'', July 11, 1891, as cited by Gernand, ''A Virginia Village Goes to War'', p. 229.]
From then through the 1940s the hill remained pastoral. During the 1930s, there were two homes owned by Maximillian Ware near where the observation tower had been. One property was purchased by George W. and Katherine Brooks. George Brooks worked for the Dept. of Labor until World War II, at which time he worked for the War Production Board. George and Katherine lived in the home until the early 1950s, when the county acquired the property to build a reservoir and Williamsburg Boulevard (according to an interview with Ed Brooks, former resident).
During the 1950s, a great wave of development spread west from Washington, and by the 1960s the entire hill was developed for housing. A public park on Williamsburg Boulevard at Powhatan Street commemorates the hill's name, and helps preserve it as a place name.
(Discovery UPDATE: Approximately 2016, The a log cabin structure owned by the Minor Family and seen photographed next to the observation tower in 1862 was in fact found to still exist at 2049 Virginia Avenue in McLean.Thos is on the Eastern rim of Minor hill facing Washington DC.
The hand hewn log cabin with salt box addition was found preserved within a brick two story home. Originally a farm.
Unfortunately, the Minor family cabin was only discovered after a construction company "Mr. Project Management" had purchased the property for development. Fairfax county completed a historical review of the property before demolition and found the structure likely to have been a slave dwelling prior to having been expanded into a home. The original structure and stone fireplace was demolished with the rest of the home approximately 2016. Additional information about this discovery by Steve Masters is available online. Local news did a few follow up stories prior to demolition)
References
{{Fairfax County in the American Civil War
Landforms of Arlington County, Virginia
Landforms of Fairfax County, Virginia
Hills of Virginia