Mount Air
Title
Mount Air
Description
Fairfax County, VA In 1760 An Interpretive Historical Map indicates that there were 24 enslaved people held by the McCarty Family. These people likely lived at Mount Air, but perhaps also at times resided at nearby Cedar Grove, another McCarty family property. Mount Air served as the center of a large tobacco plantation, worked by several generations of enslaved families. An inventory from 1811 lists 76 enslaved people on the property and in several instances, lists 3 generations (e.g. Betty, Betty, Jr. and Betty, 3rd). A series of Chichester (McCarty descendant) wills indicates a division of the enslaved people to different grantees which likely split families over the years. Slavery seems to have ended on the property in 1860 with the sale out of the family.
Remnants of the buildings on the property and archaeology show the transition from tobacco mono-culture to diversified agriculture, first mixed crops and later crops and dairy operations at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Oral history relates the existence of a slave cemetery on the property and cabins to house the enslaved. Recent work on the property may provide more information on the people who lived there.
Remnants of the buildings on the property and archaeology show the transition from tobacco mono-culture to diversified agriculture, first mixed crops and later crops and dairy operations at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Oral history relates the existence of a slave cemetery on the property and cabins to house the enslaved. Recent work on the property may provide more information on the people who lived there.
Source
General Management Plan for Mount Air Historic Site, Fairfax County Park Authority, November 1998. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/sites/parks/files/assets/documents/plandev/master-plans/mountairmp1998.pdf
Mount Air, Fairfax County Virginia by Edith Moore Sprouse. 1970 (in rare books collection FCPL Virginia Room)
Mount Air Historic Overlay District, https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/planning-development/historic-overlay-districts/mount-air
Location
8600 Accotink Rd. Lorton, VA 22079
District
Mount Vernon
Collection
Citation
“Mount Air,” Fairfax County African American History Inventory, accessed October 24, 2026, https://fairfaxaahi.centerformasonslegacies.com/items/show/172.