Fauntleroy Prior to the purchase by Col.
William Tayloe, John Tayloe II's grandfather, the land on which Mount Airy stands was originally purchased by Colonel Moore Fauntleroy in 1651, to add to his existing plantation on the north shore of the Rappahannock River in old Rappahannock County.
The Old House In 1682 Col. William Tayloe purchased 3,000 acres from Col. Moore Fauntleroy's son William, and built a 20-room brick dwelling called "The Old House." Tayloe's daughter and her famous husband are buried in the Tayloe family
cemetery, approximately from the manor house. The first noteworthy colonial horse race was won by Col. Tasker's 6 year old imported mare
Selima at
Annapolis, Maryland in May 1752. That December, Selima raced in
Gloucester, Virginia and beat
Col William Byrd's "Trial", as well as this Col. Tayloe's "Jenny Cameron" & "Childers" and Col. Thornton's "Unnamed". That sweepstakes, in four mile heats and with a purse of 500 pistoles, marks the beginning of the competition between Maryland and Virginia in horseracing. In April, 1766, Col. Tayloe's "Traveller" won with ease, beating
Col Lewis Burwell III of
Kingsmill Plantation's "John Dismal" and Francis Whiting's "Janus." In October Col. Tayloe's "Hero" won the purse, beating
Col William Byrd's "Trial" & "Valiant," and
Richard Henry Lee's "Mark Anthony." In November, at
Chestertown, Maryland, a purse of 100 pistoles was run for by the two most celebrated horses of the era, Col. Tayloe's "Yorick" and Sam Galloway's (of
Tulip Hill in Maryland) horse "Selim" (son of Selima). In May, 1767, Col. Tayloe won the "50 Pistoles Purse" near Annapolis as his horse "Traveller" outraced: "Trial"
Bullen's,
Benedict Calvert's "Regulus" and Dr. Hamilton's "Ranger". In the spring of 1769, Capt Littleberry Hardyman again won the purse with "Mark Anthony," beating John Tayloe's "Nonpareil" and Nathaniel Withoe's "Fanny Murray." In the fall of 1774, at Fredericksburg John Tayloe's "Single Peeper" won the "50 Pound Purse" beating Benjamin Grymes' "Miss Spot," Walker Taliaferro's "Valiant," Spotswood's "Fearnaught," Charles Jones' "Regulus," Procter's "Jenny Bottom," Robert Slaughter's "Ariel" and Peter Presley' Thornton's "Ariel." Upon completion of his townhouse,
The Octagon he cofounded founded the
Washington Jockey Club in the new federal city, Washington, D.C. (which became his winter residence). He also operated an ironworks and shipbuilding facility near
Neabsco, Virginia,
Neabsco Iron Works, led a company of dragoons into Pennsylvania to suppress the
Whiskey Rebellion, and held various local political offices.
William Henry Tayloe The son of John Tayloe III, took over Mount Airy in 1828. Its enslaved population continued to increase, even as depleted soil led to crop shortfalls and declining profits. He and his brothers responded in part by acquiring cotton fields in west-central or
Black Belt region of
Alabama. Between 1833 and 1862, William Henry Tayloe moved a total of 218 enslaved people (many teenagers) about 800 miles from Virginia to Alabama. Because the trans-Atlantic slave trade nominally closed because Britain ended slavery and because the U.S. Constitution's provisions against slave imports took effect in 1808, Virginia became a net exporter of enslaved people within the U.S. Although the U.S. had fewer than a million enslaved people as the 19th century began (mostly concentrated in the coastal and piedmont South), with the invention of the cotton gin and development of internal slave trading, there were four times as many enslaved people four decades later, working from Charleston to Texas. A fire started by a maid in 1844 gutted the house and destroyed most of the woodwork of master carpenter William Buckland. It was rebuilt within its shell of brown sandstone with limestone
quoins and using the original floor plan.
Henry Augustine "Harry" Tayloe II Henry Gwynne Tayloe Henry Gwynne Tayloe Jr. and Grand Polly == Current use ==