Fairfax, Ferdinando

Ferdinando Fairfax was a member of Virginia’s elite class of planters, having been born into one of the most renowned families in the colony. George and Martha Washington attended Fairfax’s baptism on 31 May 1769 and agreed to serve as his godparents. Fairfax was very close with the Washington family, who provided him with business advice and social introductions in both Virginia society and in the federal capital of Philadelphia. 

When his childless uncle George William Fairfax died in 1787, Ferdinando inherited property in England and in Northern Virginia, including the family’s Belvoir estate in Fairfax County. However, after Fairfax married his first cousin, Elizabeth Blair Cary, in February 1796, he established his primary residence at Shannon Hill (near present-day Charles Town, West Virginia) to be closer to his large landholdings in Loudoun and Jefferson counties. Rather than leasing his properties to tenants—something his uncle regularly did during his lifetime—Fairfax subdivided and sold his properties, particularly his holdings in Loudoun County. Thanks to these frequent land sales and his social and economic stature in the county, Fairfax seems to have had regular interactions with the Masons of Raspberry Plain. This connection is evident throughout the Mason family manuscript account book, which shows Fairfax conducting two business transactions through his personal attorney, William H. Harding. 

As a young man, Fairfax experienced a religious conversion to Swedenborgianism, which caused him to question the morality of slavery. In 1790, Fairfax published a “Plan for Liberating the Negroes within the United States,” wherein he called for the emancipation of enslaved people and their resettlement in Africa. His plan also specified that the United States government should compensate slaveholders for their losses, which undoubtedly would have helped Fairfax, who was among the largest slaveholders in the region. During his lifetime, Fairfax emancipated a handful of his slaves, but his precarious financial circumstances prevented him from liberating all his human property. He nonetheless remained committed to the idea of ending slavery, as he was among the signers of the 1816 constitution for the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States. 

In addition to land sales, Fairfax pursued several other business interests, such as lumber sales, ironworks, and a ferry service, most of which were unsuccessful. Due to his failed business strategies, his extravagant lifestyle, and the expenses associated with his large family, Fairfax struggled financially in the latter years of his life. In 1810, the Fairfaxes moved to a townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia. The family later moved to their Mount Eagle estate in Fairfax County, which is where Ferdinando Fairfax died on 24 September 1820. Elizabeth Blair Cary Fairfax relocated back to Shannon Hill after her husband’s death, where she died on 19 January 1822. Their twenty-four-year marriage produced at least fifteen children, many of whom remained in Virginia following their parents’ deaths. 

By David Armstrong