Chapter III: Introduction

It is difficult to understand how a house whose history is closely connected to the well-known Mason family has existed, practically without notice or mention, for one hundred and fifty years. This fact is all the more puzzling when the structure is as architecturally important as "Huntley."

Several possible explanations come to mind:

* Though near a major highway, the house is isolated on its
hillside site.

* Because the structure has been somewhat altered, close inspection
is necessary before its architectural merits can be fully
recognized.

* The house was a country or secondary home for a member of the
Mason family who, though important in his own right, was
overshadowed by his more illustrious father, Thomson Mason of
"Hollin Hall", and by his grandfather, George Mason IV of "Gunston
Hall."

* No one has written in detail about the house before and there is
little secondary material available concerning it.

Kate Mason Rowland's _Life of George Mason_, published in 1892,[1] gives one of the few references to Huntley found by the author in secondary sources. In an appendix titled "Land described in George Mason's will, and now owned by his descendent's," she notes:

It was incorrectly stated in one of the earlier volumes that
"Lexington" was the only one of the Mason places in Virginia now in
the family. The writer had overlooked "Okeley" in Fairfax County,
about six miles from Alexandria. The farms of "Okeley" and
"Huntley" were both parts of the estate bequeathed by George Mason
to his son Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall." A double ditch[50] is
still to be seen on the southern border of these two places,
extending several miles from East to West, with a broad space about
thirty feet wide separating the two ditches. These mark the line
between the lands of George Mason and George Washington, as they
were in the lives of those gentlemen. In General Washington's will
he refers "to the back line or outer boundary of the tract between
Thomson Mason and myself ... now double ditching with a
post-and-rail fence thereon," etc. And he mentions in another place
"the new double ditch" in connection with the boundary line between
"Mt. Vernon" and the Mason property. In adding to his estate he had
purchased land at one time from George Mason. And among the
Washington papers preserved in the Lewis and Washington families,
and recently sold to autograph collectors, are three letters of
George Mason, on the subject of the bounds between the Washington
and Mason plantations, one written in 1768, the others in 1769.
Washington adds a memorandum to the former, saying that "the lines
to which this letter has reference were settled by and between
Colonel Mason and myself the 19th of April, 1769, as will appear
... by a survey thereof made on that day in his presence, and with
his approbation." "Huntley" owned by Judge Thomson F. Mason of
"Colross," son of Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall," passed out of the
family some years ago ...

Another mention is in Edith Moore Sprouse's _Potomac Sampler_, published in 1961.[2] She identifies Huntley as "a part of the estate of George Mason of Gunston Hall ... on a tract of land which bordered Washington's on the north and stretched from the Potomac to Kings Highway."

The following study of the Huntley complex combines the work of architects, architectural historians and historians in reading and interpreting the structures. At some future date, efforts of archaeologists will probably be rewarded with further information about the complex at various stages of development.

Introduction Notes

[Footnote 1: Kate Mason Rowland, =The Life of George Mason= (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1892), p. 472]

[Footnote 2: Edith Moore Sprouse, =Potomac Sampler= (Alexandria: privately printed, 1961).]