The Lost Black Communities of Merrifield, the Pines, and Williamstown

After the Civil War, Black land ownership in Fairfax County increased by leaps and bounds.

By the 1870s, retired Union officers were purchasing land that they sold to African Americans like Joshua Ball, Joshua Pearson, Robert Bradley, and John Coates. Merrifield, the Pines, and Williamstown soon emerged as vibrant communities founded by Born-Free Blacks, the formerly enslaved, and their descendants. These African Americans quickly established farms to provide for their families and engaged in truck farming to stimulate trade. They formed charitable organizations and a church. Unfortunately, from the 1960s through the 1980s, these towns disappeared due to eminent domain practices, modern progress, and gentrification.

Historian Marion Ransell Dobbins unearths the legacy of these vanished communities.