2009-09-13 Second OutingI've seen this place a thousand times, but never bothered to look at it.As I sat on my bike, halfheartedly snapping a few shots of the church in the middle of the village, a cheerful looking lady pulled along side of me. "Excuse me, but are you looking for the Park?"
Shutting the engine down on my bike, I attempted to project my voice from behind my helmet, "No" I said, "I'm right where I was aiming for, do I look lost?"
She smiled and replied "Oh, it isn't that, its just that we get quite a few people that miss the turn into Shenandoah Park that end up in that very spot, looking more confused then you do right now."
"Huh, well it might be hard to believe, but my destination was indeed Browntown when I left the house this morning."
That got a long laugh, followed by a hoot, "Alright! Who ever knew, Browntown is a DESTINATION! Woooowhooo!" With that she gave a enthusiastic wave and pulled away, no doubt on her way to church.
Browntown sits in the middle of an area known as "Gooney Manor." This tract of land was once part of the larger estate held by Thomas Fairfax, more often known as "Lord Fairfax." Lord Fairfax owned a massive tract of land, spanning some 5,282,000 acres. This mind boggling slice of land contained all of the Northern Neck, massive chunks of what we know as NoVA, and the northern half of the Shenandoah Valley. That's a lot of grass to mow.
The Fairfax Family relied on the proceeds from this land to support their royal lifestyle back in merry old England. As such, almost none of the land in this massive domain was ever flat out sold to anyone - just leased. One person to lease in these lands was Abraham Brown, who built a number of mills along Gooney Creek south of an area known as Hambaugh, named for the postmaster/postoffice run by John Hambaugh. Seeing as "Browntown" is a hellava lot easier to say then Hambaugh - the little village eventually got a new name, much to the chagrin of John. As an Uttenweiler, I feel his pain.
Even after Thomas left England and came to America to settle out near Front Royal, he kept racking in the fees and dues from the leases on his land. It wasn't till his death that the fledgling government flexed its muscles to confiscate it from his heir Robert, who'd made the poor choice of staying in England.
Very little of that land stayed with the Fairfax family, and after essentially being mugged by The Commonwealth, the family sold off the remaining portion to various people in various chunks small and large. One large chunk went to John Marshall in 1812.
For those a little light on history, John Marshall was one of the first Supreme Court Justices. He basically "invented" the court as we know it, walking out on a limb and enforcing the notion that the Court is responsible for insuring that laws passed by the Congress adhere to the Constitution
as the Justices interpret it. It took a lot of fortitude and confidence to pull that kind of power play - backed by a righteous sense of honor and duty.
That sense of honor is what led Marshall and his family to do the right thing when they purchased the land from Lord Fairfax. At the time the Gooney Manor tract was populated by a mix of squatters and lease holders. None of them had a legal right to the land that they occupied, however it was those people and their relations that had semi-domesticated the area. Recognizing this, the Marshalls granted official deeds to these early residents, for a fee of course.
After that, the history of Browntown sloooows waaaaaaay doooooooown. To the point that I can't even ramble about it.
The area is quiet & pretty, tucked in between the Shenandoah and a short line of foothills south of Front Royal. If you've ever stopped at any of the overlooks from the Northern Entrance of the Park your staring over and into Gooney Manor. There are 3 roads that make for a nice loop, Browntown Rd, Bentonville Browntown Rd, and Gooney Manor Loop. The Loop has a nice section of Gravel, and is extremely quiet. There were a few high valleys that caught my eye for shooting come leaf season.
That said, I really wasn't on my game for this scout & shoot. I left late leaving me very little of the "magic hour" at sunrise to shoot with. I was also still steaming mad after finding a collection of my photos being used in a crappy brochure, hence the watermarks, hope they are not too distracting. {{shrug}} Lots of stuff had me a bit off my game, but I all my saddle time in the area was quite pleasant. All that said, here is my take from the daytrip:
