One of Bull Run's tributaries is Popes Head Creek, a stream whose strange name, possibly taken from a street name in London, 1 first appeared in the Northern Neck Grants in 1710. Present-day Fairfax County still lay within the boundaries of Stafford County, and Englishmen were eagerly taking up lands on what was then the frontier. John Waugh received a grant of 2800 acres and Thomas Hooper, 900 acres, in that year, between Popes Head Creek and Johnny Moore Run. In 1728/9, Francis Beavers was granted 400 acres on Popes Head; the next year, Richard Kirtling, Jr. (Kirkland) was granted 290 acres on Popes Head Creek and Bull Run adjacent to Beavers, in­cluding a water grist mill standing on Popes Head Creek. These four English grantees, who received their lands from the agent for the Northern Neck Pro­prietary, were the first owners of record of the land now known as the Town of Clif­ton and its environs.2

In time, these lands were sold to, or in­herited by, families named Tyler, Beckwith, Dozer, Pollard, Grant, Turley, Mauzy, Monk, Henderson, Payne, Davis, Wickliffe, and Gibbs. Of these later land­owners, Marmaduke Beckwith, the Younger, of Richmond County, Virginia, purchased from Charles and Ann Tyler, 424 acres, part of the old Hooper grant, "on Giant's Castle Branch..." (now called "Castle Creek"). His descendants assembled several other parcels and a century after the first Beckwith purchase, William E. Beckwith owned over 1200 acres on and near Popes Head Creek.3

_{Mists near Popes Head Creek like morning fogs in Clifton. 1979 photo by Virginia Ruck.}                                                                                                                      5

Many families whose names are still familiar in the Clifton area took up land in the vicinity of the Beckwith holdings. The Kincheloe family owned local property before 1772, and purchased the upper Union Mill on Popes Head from Nancy Dye, executrix of John H. Dye, after his death in 1830.4 Castle Branch and Johnny Moore Run were locations of ear­ly Buckley acquisitons in 1844, 1847, and 1851.5 James and Edward Sangster were among nine heirs at law of James Sangster, deceased, inheriting property on Popes Head and Wolf Run in 1846 and 1848.6 William E. Ford purchased land on Popes Head Creek and Castle Branch adjacent to Sangster's line in 1848 from his father, Charles F. Ford.7 John L. Detwiler, who moved his family south from Chester County, Penn­sylvania, to mend his fortunes just prior to the Civil War, purchased Union Mills south of Popes Head near Bull Run. Land was cheaper and more plentiful, the water supply was good, and the growing season was longer in Virginia.8

_{The Clifton area segment from Beth Mitchell's cadastral map in Beginning at a white Oak... Patents and Northern Neck Grants of Fairfax County, Virginia, published by the Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning, 1977. Grants were made to John Warrgh and Thomas Hooper in l7/0; Francis Beavers received his grant in 1728/9 and Richard Kirkling, Jr. (Kirkland) in 1730.}