A Historic Road Down by the Riverside

A Historic Road Down by the Riverside

By Joe Motheral

Edward’s Ferry Road is named after Edward’s Ferry that operated from 1791 to 1915 across the Potomac River near Goose Creek east of Leesburg. There’s also an Edward’s Ferry Road in Maryland leading up to the ferry landing on that side of the river.

In June, 1863, about 70,000 Union forces marched down Edward’s Ferry Road and crossed the Potomac River into Maryland on their way to Gettysburg. They managed to get across on a pontoon bridge constructed of rowboats and wooden planks.

The remains of stone buildings—a stable, granary, ice house, and a well structure built around 1880 by Charles Paxton—are now part of the Northern Virginia Park Authority’s Wilderness Park located on the east end of Edward’s Ferry Road.

A short distance west is the site of an old inn known as Cattail Ordinary. A British subject, Nicholas Cresswell, wrote in his journal in an entry dated Thursday, September 19, 1776 that, “Mr. Kirk insisted on me dining with him. Expected I was gone aboard the fleet. Lodged at the Cattail.”

The late Mary Harris owned the Cattail Farm along Edwards Ferry Road. At the outset of World War II, she lived in Shanghai, as the daughter of a British diplomat stationed there. They were interned by the Japanese and later were exchanged for Japanese internees.

The family ended up in Portuguese East Africa where she worked for the English espionage agency MI5 as a coder. She met and married Huntington Harris, a member of the OSS, and they later moved to Leesburg. The Cattail name derives from a creek with cattails that runs through the Harris property, now in an environmental easement.

The Sage Hill farm across the road from the Harris farm is owned by the Eeda and the late Alfred Dennis. In an interview several years ago, Alfred pointed out several prominent swales along the road. “That’s a Confederate entrenchment,” he said. “It was likely designed to keep an eye on Union troops coming up Edwards Ferry Road on their way to Leesburg.”

When Noah Markham of the Civil War Trust saw those trenches, he said, “Outside of possibly Vicksburg and Petersburg, these are the most imposing and wellpreserved Civil War entrenchments I’ve seen.” The Dennis property has yielded rifle slugs and pieces of Confederate and Union uniforms.

Eeda Dennis grew up in Nazi-occupied Norway. Her father once told her that if it hadn’t been for General George Marshall and the Marshall Plan, her family would have starved after the war.

She once met General Marshall when he was out painting the gates at the entrance to his Leesburg home known as Dodona Manor on Edwards Ferry Road. He lived there for 12 years and Eeda Dennis has served on the board of Dodona Manor.