Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park
park in Preston County, West Virginia, United States of America
Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park is a West Virginia state park commemorating the Fairfax Stone, a surveyor's marker and boundary stone at the source of the North Branch of the Potomac River. The original stone was placed on October 23, 1746, to settle a boundary dispute between Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron and the Privy Council of Great Britain concerning the Northern Neck of Virginia. It determined the proprietorship and boundaries of a large tract of mostly unsurveyed land in the British colonies of Maryland and Virginia.
Park
Fairfax Stone Historical Monument, part of a four-acre West Virginia state park, is six miles north of Thomas, West Virginia. The site is sparsely developed, lacking any buildings or restroom facilities.
History
The exact boundaries of the "Northern Neck Land Grant" (later called the "Fairfax Grant") had been undetermined since it was first contrived in 1649 by the then-exiled Charles II of England.
John Savage and his survey party had located the site of the source of the North Branch of the Potomac River (the northern boundary of the tract) in 1736, but had made no attempt to establish the western boundaries. A 1746 survey by Colonel Peter Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson's father) and Thomas Lewis resulted in both the placement of the Fairfax Stone as well as the establishment of a line of demarcation known as the "Fairfax Line", extending from the Stone to the south-east and ending at the source of the Rappahannock River, a distance of 77 miles (124 km).
In 1748, George Washington, along with frontiersman and noted surveyor David Morgan of Virginia, had surveyed the area again. Their job was to establish the northernmost boundary of Lord Fairfax's land and estate, on the present day borders of Maryland and West Virginia.
The public source identifies “Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park” as park in Preston County, West Virginia, United States of America. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fairfax, Stone and Historical.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park”, the useful work is to connect “park in Preston County, West Virginia, United States of America” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q31580535. Authority coordinates are 39.195, -79.487. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1746, 1649, 1736 and 1748.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.