Lake Barcroft History Book

As a prelude to the 50-year history of the Lake Barcroft
community, a portion of the Lake Barcroft Story is
reprinted from the Lake Barcroft Directory. This is a
synopsis of local area history up to 1950. It also contains some
background on the person for whom Lake Barcroft is named.
The Lake Barcroft Story
BARCROFT COMMUNITY was named in memory of a
doctor who built his home here and also operated a mill. The
man was Dr. John W. Barcroft, originally from New Jersey. In
1849, Dr. Barcroft came to our area and built both a home
and a mill on Columbia Pike at Holmes Run near the present
dam. He practiced medicine throughout the surrounding
community and ran his mill up to the time of the Civil War.
During its retreat from the Battle of Bull Run, the Union
Army overran Dr. Barcroft’s home. His property was so
damaged that he went back North until the end of the war.
He then returned to Fairfax County and built a new home on
what became known as Barcroft Hill.
Before the time of Dr. Barcroft, our neighborhood was not
without some notable history. The original residents were the
Doe and Necostin Indians of the Algonquin tribes. (Anacostia
derives its name from the Necostins.) Artifacts of these early
natives are still occasionally found. Howard Uphoff has
uncovered arrowheads on his land at 6308 Lakeview Drive.
Munson Hill Farm was a large tract between what is now
Bailey’s Crossroads and Seven Corners. It was settled and
developed during the early 1700’s. Timothy Munson bought
the land in 1851 and gave his name to the farm. In the time to
come, his name was also applied to a community and a street
just north of our lake area. Columbia Pike was constructed as a
toll road in 1808, and was then called the Washington
Graveled Road.
During the Civil War, both Munson Hill Farm and Bailey’s
Crossroads were scenes of action. At the beginning of the war
Bailey’s Crossroads was a Union Army camp. At the same time,
the Confederate Army occupied locations at Annandale and
Fairfax. Later, federal troops built Fort Buffalo at the present
site of Seven Corners, and it became one of the ring of forts
protecting the District of Columbia in 1861. At about that
time, Bailey’s Crossroads was the site of the largest military
review ever held anywhere. General McClellan reviewed
75,000 troops, and President Lincoln was among the
additional 75,000 spectators who came to watch the Army of
the Potomac’s vast parade.
Introduction
2
It was during this grand review that Julia Ward Howe was
inspired to write new words for the music of a song called John
Brown’s Body. The new song became one of the most stirring
anthems of all time, the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Bailey’s Crossroads is named for the Baileys, a circus owning
family whose menagerie and shows were merged with those of
P. T. Barnum about 1870. The Barnum and Bailey Circus was
then billed as, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” For many years,
Bailey’s Crossroads was its winter quarters.
Lake Barcroft came into being in 1915. An increasing need for
water by the City of Alexandria led the Alexandria Water
Company to build the dam and establish a reservoir to store
the waters from the branches of Holmes Run. The North
Branch of Holmes Run is now called Tripps Run.
Dam construction was begun in 1913 under contract with the
Piedmont Construction Company. Specifications for the
Barcroft Dam were severe and the construction was massive.
The structure is of cyclopean masonry and concrete. The
foundation is laid upon bedrock. A railway was built to
transport the masonry stones to the dam site. The contractor
went broke completing the job.
The result was a dam 400 feet wide with the spillway at the
top 205 feet above mean sea level and 63 feet above the
streambed. Behind this dam, there formed a lake of 115 acres
and over five miles of shoreline. When full it held nearly
620,000,000 gallons and had an average daily runoff of about
10,000,000 gallons. In 1942, gates were installed at the top of
the dam to raise the spillway level five feet. This increased the
size of the reservoir to 135 acres and the capacity to about
800,000,000 gallons.
In the late 1940’s, the reservoir became too small to serve
Alexandria and other water sources replaced its use. In 1950
the reservoir and its surrounding land were put up for sale by
the Water Company. There was a movement to turn it into a
Fairfax County park, but the Board of Supervisors considered
the economics and decided in favor of private development.
A partnership of developers from Boston bought the lake
and 680 acres of land in the spring of 1950 for about one
million dollars.
Adapted from “Lake Barcroft Origins” by Will Fazar, Lake Barcroft Directory
1967, and “Some Virginia History” by Rex Lauck, Lake Barcroft Directory
1970. Revised, 1974 & 1979, by Myron Birnbaum. Revised, 1992 by
William Lowenthal.