ssed and recrossed Northern Virginia.[56]

[Illustration: Figure 5. c. 1885, Fountain Beattie and Annie Hathaway
Beattie.]

[Illustration: The Mosby and Beattie Families, c. 1890]

[Illustration: The Old Stone Spring House]

[Illustration: The Lane to Green Spring Farm]

Whether Fountain Beattie saw or visited Green Spring Farm during these
rides with Mosby's battalion is not certain. There is reason to think
he may have been in the neighborhood because of references to
engagements at such places as "Billy Gooding's tavern on the Little
River Turnpike, 10 miles from Alexandria."[57] Moreover, he may
have heard of the farm from one of the descendants of its owners,
since on one occasion he escaped imminent disaster only through the
intervention of one Thomas Moss of Alexandria.[58]

Be that as it may, the region must have made a strong impression on
him because, after moving several times in the years following the
war, it was in Fairfax County that Fountain Beattie and his family
finally settled. Money for the purchase of Green Spring Farm in 1878
came from Mrs. Beattie's inheritance following the sale of "Western
View," the homestead of her deceased parents, located in Fauquier
County.[59] At that time, Green Spring Farm was available for purchase
through the County Court, which had ordered it sold to satisfy the
judgment for debt against Matthew O'Brien.[60]

ORCHARD AND DAIRY. Fountain Beattie's selection of Green Spring Farm
appears to have been made with an eye to its proximity to the Little
River Turnpike and the old Columbia Turnpike (now Route 712).
Increasingly, the farmers of the Piedmont region of Virginia were
feeling the competition of farmers in the Shenandoah Valley and
outside the state in the production of wheat and corn. This
competition was made possible when railroads connected the Valley of
Virginia and the farmlands of the great midwestern prairie states with
the markets of the eastern cities. Farmers in the middle and Northern
Virginia no longer enjoyed the advantages they once had in shipping
wheat and corn to these markets.[61] More and more in the last quarter
of the nineteenth century, Northern Virginia farmers planted corn,
wheat, and other grains for use as livestock feed rather than sale in
the grain market.

[Illustration: Figure 6. John Singleton Mosby.]

Like many other Fairfax County farmers, Fountain Beattie found that he
was better off to abandon diversified farming in fa