Batestown is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Prince William County Prince William County lies beside the Potomac River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 482,204, making it Virginia's second most populous county. The county seat is the independent city of Manassas. A part ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

. The town was located along the farthest terminus of Batestown Road in what is now a western neighborhood of

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...

along the banks of

Quantico Creek Quantico Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 partially tidal tributary of the Potomac River in eastern Prince William County, Virginia. Quantico ...

. It was an enclave for freed slaves named for Mary Bates, the matriarch of the community."Hickory Ridge and Batestown: Local Life Before the Park"
''Official NPS Website'', retrieved April 7, 2006 Batestown and Hickory Ridge both suffered the same fate. Between 1933 and 1937, the Federal Government began implementing a

Resettlement Administration The Resettlement Administration (RA) was a New Deal U.S. federal agency created May 1, 1935. It relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government. On September 1, 1937, it was succeeded by the Farm S ...

program to form Chopawamsic

Recreational Demonstration Area The Recreational Demonstration Area program (also known as the Recreation Demonstration Area program) was a National Park Service program during the 1930s and early 1940s that built forty-six public parks in twenty-four states on , chiefly near urba ...

,National Park Service - Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area
/ref> where rural farmers were supposed to relocate for more fertile land. The RA bought 79 pieces of property in both Hickory Ridge and Batestown and condemned another 48, to form a new recreation area. However, the RA often made no effort to actually resettle the displaced residents. The area residents resisted the relocation efforts, sometimes retreating into the park boundaries to escape detection. This continued until the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, where the park was taken over by the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...

as a spy training ground. The park was surrounded by barbed wire and fences, and patrolled by dogs and armed guards. All remaining forty-four holdouts were evicted, some literally carried away screaming. At the end of the war, the displaced residents hoped their land would be restored, but to date these families have received no compensation. Instead, the property was turned over to the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

and renamed

Prince William Forest Park Prince William Forest Park is a National Park Service (NPS) site in the U.S. state of Virginia within Prince William County (and very partially Stafford County), located adjacent to the Marine Corps Base Quantico near the town of Dumfries. Est ...

References

{{authority control Populated places in Prince William County, Virginia Former populated places in Virginia

See also

References