Maddox family had slaves on land that is now Hope Hill Crossing
A new historical marker will be erected at the Hope Hill Crossing neighborhood.
The $3,000 tablet will mark a cemetery that belongs to the Maddox family who used live on the site of the Hope Hill Crossing neighborhood, off Springs Road near Va. 234. The marker will stand at the intersection of Hope Hill Drive and Papillion Place.
The developers of Hope Hill Crossing proffered money for the historical marker, according to county documents. Headstones can still be seen at the cemetery today in where the marker will be placed.
According to county documents, the land was purchased by Allison Maddox, a Revolutionary War veteran from Charles County, Md., and used as a farm with slaves between the years 1760 and 1843. The headstones date between 1826 and 1857 and mark the graves of Maddox’s brother-in-law, Jessie Scott, among others.
Maddox’s son, Robert, sold the land to George Pitkin and moved to Stafford County, county documents state.
The Prince William County Board of Supervisors approved the new marker on Tuesday. It will join more than 2,200 other historical markers in Virginia when it is erected.
Virginia claims to have the oldest historical marker program in the nation, when in 1927, the first historical markers were erected along U.S. 1 between Richmond and Mount Vernon.
Now popular across the U.S., the roadside historical marker program has been adopted in nearly every state. One of the strangest maybe a maker in Lincoln, N.H. that denotes the place where a couple was allegedly abducted by aliens in 1961. The incident marks the first report of such alleged alien abductions.
