Local citizens of both Southern and Northern sympathies faced hard work picking up the pieces of their lives which had been fragmented by the war. Farmers began to cultivate parcels of land, hoping to make at least small crops in the summer of 1865. Women worked to make living quarters once again pleasant and homelike. Ladies once accustomed to leisure living prepared meals over open fires and scrubbed family laundry. Schools were opened, often in private homes, for children who had not been in a classroom during the four war years. l

Almost immediately after the surrender at Appomattox, there were signs of op­timism in Virginia, particularly in the northern counties. Cheap land, a milder climate, and proximity to Washington, D.C., made Fairfax County an attractive area for men from the North. Many of them had seen military service during the war, passing through these regions whose obvious advantages drew them back to settle permanently with their families after peace was restored. Some Virginians welcomed the industrious new citizens and saw that with the new tide of im­migration from the North came improved livestock and better implements of husbandry.2

Such an industrious citizen was Har­rison G. Otis. His activities exemplified the new patterns of land distribution, post-war economic growth, and in­creased economic dependence on the modernizing railroad. Migrating from On­tario County, New York, Otis purchased several pieces of land, beginning in February 1868, with a large parcel of 1001 acres on Castle Branch, Popes Head Creek, and the Orange and Alex­andria Railroad. The land was bought from John T. Bronaugh, executor of the William E. Beckwith estate.3

At the time of the first Otis purchase, the railroad station was still called "Devereux" as it had been during the Civil War when Haupt had built the siding for loading wood to burn in the locomotives of the U. S. Military Railroad. It was so designated in a court order opening a road from Braddock Road near Centreville to Devereux Sta­tion on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad in August 1868. The name was in use for only about five years. By November 1868, "Devereux Station" had become "Clifton Station," and E. B. Georgia had been appointed its first sta­tion agent.4 Otis purchased land near the depot building at Clifton from the Har­rises, some of Beckwith's freed slaves.5

On this he built his hotel. Clifton officially became a U. S. post office on February 9, 1869, H. G. Otis, postmaster, and replaced Dye's Mill post office (Union Mills) .6

There has been much speculation regarding the source of the name, "Clif­ton." An ancient Beckwith estate in England had been called that; an early resident of the community, Mrs. Margaret Hetzel, was said to have named Clifton after an English town associated with the local Wickliffe family. The post village and station were thought by some to have been named after Clifton, New Jersey, er­roneously supposed to have been H. G. Otis' home in the North.7 However, the most plausible explanation appeared in a Virginia Midland Railway Excursion Guide published in 1882:

Clifton, a small village, twenty-two miles from Alexandria and twelve miles from Bull Run battlefield, was named by a northern settler after Clifton Springs, New York [Ontario County] a very popular resort in that section of the country.... Clifton was a depot of supplies during the war, of which the surrounding earthworks give some trace. As an evidence of the excellent soil for vineyard pur­poses, grapes raised in this vicinity commanded at a home market fif­teen cents a pound. The fine dairy farm of Judge Fullerton of N.Y. is worthy of special notice.8

Otis and his land cultivation and development had begun to receive public notice in 1868. The Alexandria Gazette reported in a feature story that he was ex­perienced in grape culture and had planted extensive vineyards in Clifton. It was noted that "Immense tracts of open and waste land adjoin that now owned by Mr. Otis, which can be bought for com­paratively a mere song, and which, with but a slight outlay, could be made to `blossom the rose.' "9 The erection of the Clifton hotel and several other buildings was already under way.

The accessibility of the station to the local farmers and businesses was impor­tant, as its promoter was well aware. His petition to the county court justices (the governing administrative body prior to the Board of Supervisors system established in 1870) to open a road from Yates Ford Road to Clifton Station and Colchester Road was granted. William and Harriet Harris consented to have the road cross their land and to relinquish claims for damages "in consideration of the benefit which will accrue to our land." This road was later realigned in 1886 to avoid a hill with a very steep grade near Clifton, a change important to farmers on the south side of the railroad, who found the old alignment risky when traversed with heavily loaded vehicles. The "beautiful hills" surrounding Clifton had also necessitated difficult realignments for a similar reason northward on the Centreville-Clifton Road in 1882. A peti­tion was also granted by the County Board of Supervisors for the opening of a road from Clifton Station to Bull Run, connecting with a road through Prince William County to Manassas. 10

Judge H. R. Selden of Rochester, New York, was in poor health in 1870. Har­rison Otis tried to persuade him to move down to the mild climate of Virginia and buy a part of his thousand-acre tract on which he now had a saw mill, near the railroad, and a large stand of timber which promised to produce a lot of money when converted into lumber. In­stead, Judge Selden sent his sickly son, George, down, placed in the care of Selden's niece, Margaret Hetzel, in Washington. In return for her assistance, he bought her 292 acres of timberland two-and-one half miles north of Clifton and a two-thirds interest in the Otis lumber mill and lot at Clifton Station. A great deal of lumber was shipped by Otis to New York City. After 1871, spokes made at the mill took first prize at State Fairs in Richmond and Baltimore. In that year, Mrs. Hetzel's requests to see the mill business accounts and to have a deed for her share of the mill property were re­fused, touching off a controversy which grew into charges and countercharges. Eventually Margaret Hetzel filed a libel suit in the Fairfax County court against Mary Otis. The case was not resolved in Mrs. Hetzel's favor until 1889.11

The "Clifton P.O. " area of Fairfax County's Centreville District in 1878. From G M. Hopkins, Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Washington. Many of the family names persist in the area to this day. Fairfax County Public Library, Virginiana Collection.

Another New Yorker who became in­terested in Clifton land was Judge William Fulierton. He purchased 440 acres on Johnny Moore Creek in 1871 from John and Martha Myers, as well as several other tracts including one near Clifton from Harrison G. Otis, who reserved to his sister, Clara Otis, the springs and spring branch on the place. (These were later owned by the Mervin family and named "Paradise Springs.") The judge had worked on his father's farm in Orange County, New York, when a young man preparing for college, where he studied law. A successful jurist with a national reputation, he set about establishing "an estate in Fairfax County, Va." where he "found a favorite relaxa­tion in scientific husbandry."12 A jour­nalist in the Alexandria Gazette, in 1875, was full of praise for Judge Fullerton's ef­forts. "This farm is the pride of Fairfax and I may say, Virginia. The farm numbers nearly one thousand acres and is well fenced all around. This farm serves to show what the soil of Virginia will do when well fed and properly cultivated."13 The judge's brother, Peter Pine Fullerton, lived on the farm north of Clifton Station year round and was the farm's manager. 14

William Ful/erton was a well-known attorney and judge in New York Cit_y. He purchased over 600 acres of good farm land near Clifton Station right after the Civil War. He came down to visit each summer, but left the farm's management in the hands of his brother, Peter Pine Fullerton. From the Fairfax Herald, /R91­

By the time Clifton Station had been in existence for ten years, more than twenty families had settled in and around the village. There were four churches, schools, mills, smiths, and wagon shops. William E. Ford, E. B. Georgia, Leander Makely, and Lewis Quigg were in the general merchandizing business. James P. Gheen and Lewis Quigg were purveyors of liquor, John T. Pettit was a huckster and blacksmith, and J. P. Woodyard was listed as a huckster. George P. Wright, J. C. Kincheloe and J. D. Cross were magistrates, and Dr. R. J. Simpson was the local physician. A man by the name of Barnes operated a saw and grist mill near Clifton in 1880. The principal farmers listed in the area that same year were Judge Fullerton, Reuben Wright, William Staples, Alex Stuart, H. C. Newman, Henry Quigg, W. B. Otis, John H. Buckley, and Albert Makely. 15