History of Occoquan

The year 1607 is momentous in the history of our nation, for in that year the first permanent English settlement was established at Jamestown, Virginia. One year later its most famous resident, John Smith, became the first European to visit the area around Occoquan and to record his findings. When Smith sailed into the Occoquan River in a large, unenclosed craft with 14 of his companions from Jamestown, people were conducting “business as usual” in Occoquan. Here was the principal village of the Dogue (also known as the Tauxenent, Taux, Toags, Doeggs, and Doeg) Indians. Men were out hunting and women were tending the gardens where they cultivated a variety of vegetables and tobacco. Smith’s boat, like the Indians’ log canoes, stopped at the rocky head of the tide water, as do the kayaks and recreational boats today. In fact, Occoquan is thought to be an Algonquin word meaning, “end of the water”.

Smith was welcomed by the Indians who prepared a feast for him at the longhouse of the “Werowance” or in Smith’s words the “King’s Howse”. The Indians provided the visitors from Jamestown with seeds and foodstuffs, and taught them survival skills, all of which would help them endure those first brutal years in Jamestown.

Written records show that the Jamestown party found the Potomac River and its estuaries prime locations for fishing. In 1608 one of the men in Smith’s band wrote. “….in diverse places that abundance of fish, lying so thick with their heads above the water as for want of nets (our barge driving among them) we attempted to catch them with a frying pan; but we found it a bad instrument to catch fish with. Neither better fish, more plenty, nor more variety for small fish, had any of us ever seen in one place so swimming in the water, but they are not to be caught with a frying pan.”

As the Native Americans were displaced and moved westward, enterprising settlers from abroad, such as John Ballendine, moved into the region to develop what would become the Town of Occoquan. Ballendine acquired land from his cousin Charles Ewell, whose plans for an iron furnace on the property were unfulfilled. When Archdeacon Burnaby from England visited Occoquan in 1759 during his travels through the American Colonies he wrote the following description in his diary. …“There is an iron furnace, a forge, two saw mills and a bolting mill…they have every convenience of water and wood that can be wished for.” Ballendine built his family a stone mansion, Rockledge, which still stands. Unfortunately, his business skills did not match his zeal for development and the mill ownership was tangled up in legal claims until it was sold to Nathaniel Ellicott and his partners. In 1790 the Occoquan Merchants Mill became the first automated grist mill in the United States. It would continue to grind wheat and corn until its 1924 demise in an accidental fire. The reins of the grist mill operations were turned over to the Janney family during the second decade of the 1800s and they continued to operate the mill until the 1924 fire. Elisha Janney built a second merchant’s mill in 1805 that survived a few short years when it also was lost in a fire. Samuel M. Janney arrived in 1828 to build a 1000 spindle cotton factory that would be torched in 1862 during the Civil War.

It was under the leadership of Nathaniel Ellicott that Occoquan flourished. The streets of the town were formally laid out in 1804. Ellicott built a wooden toll bridge in 1795 which was destroyed in a storm in 1807, rebuilt in 1808 and stood until the 1850’s. A strong iron truss bridge was erected in 1878 at the same location, remaining for almost 100 years before collapsing to the fury that was Hurricane Agnes. Today a footbridge stands in this location.

Due to its proximity to Washington, Occoquan hosted both Union and Confederate troops during the Civil War and witnessed a major skirmish during December 1862. Pontoon bridges crossed the river and troops came and went continually until the war’s end. In the early months of the conflict, Confederate General Wade Hampton used the town as his winter headquarters. During this tumultuous period the cotton mill was burned, supposedly torched by Union troops.

Through the 1800’s Occoquan was a flurry of activity. Boats were built, lumber was shipped from the saw mills, fish, grain and ice were shipped to the city markets. Steamships arrived with excursionists to dine at the town’s hotels and stroll along the mill race enjoying the fragrant hillsides, which were abundant with natural beauty.

In 1972 the river, which had for two centuries provided the town commercial and recreational benefits, revealed an uglier side as Hurricane Agnes caused flooding in Occoquan, resulting in significant damage and loss. The people of the town rebuilt and Occoquan eventually evolved into the wonderful mixture of old and new that gives it the unique character we see today.

Occoquan joins Jamestown this year to commemorate our common beginnings and to celebrate those hardy, adventurous men and women who came to North America, tamed the wilderness, and built towns and cities all across Virginia.

Adapated with permission from Historic Occoquan, Inc.'s 2007 Calendar