About Seven Oaks Lavender Farm

"How did you decide to start a lavender farm?" is one of the questions we are most often asked. To answer this question we should really start with my mother’s family which is a Pennsylvania farm family with roots reaching back to the 1700’s. My grandfather, Charles Campbell, raised hogs and potatoes and my mother, Edith Jane Campbell Williamson, worked by his side learning a lot about caring for plants and animals. See her hog slopping!  She raised her five children knowing how to work hard, to garden well and to love and appreciate the beauty of nature.

We can't leave my father's side of the family out of the lavender farm story though.  Bertha Williamson, my paternal grandmother, taught her son, Glenn, how to SELL!  (And sing, travel, and to be always mindful of the needs of others.)  Nana, as we called her, then went on to inspire her grandchildren with her love of crafting and her marketing genius.  We fondly recall her stories of sales triumphs at The Little Tijuana Gift Shop in Miami, Florida.  As children my sister Dianne and my brothers, Doug, Duane and David marched around our suburban development charming neighbors into buying potholders, note cards, leather bracelets, seed packets, and fairly useless things such as painted rocks and little hand-sewn "pockets".

At the age of fourteen, we moved from Fairfax to Fauquier County.   I was not always thrilled with country life. When I left for college, I swore never to return to live there. Fast-forward twenty years, past studying business, art and humanities. Living in Norfolk, Virginia and then New York City where I had my son Lincoln. By the time he reached two, I changed my mind about city life. I longed to raise him in open spaces and returned to Virginia. 

I lived with my parents for a time. Mom and I discussed ideas for a little farm  project. Flowers? Herbs? What would sell? I started asking around. On one trip  back to New York, my hair stylist and I chatted about a shop his boyfriend had that  sold herbs. “What sells the best?” I asked. “Hmm…rosemary or lavender I think,”  he responded. Mom, my sister and I had taken a trip to France recently and bought  some lavender in our travels through the French countryside. I also came across and article in “Oprah” magazine about a women who had left a career in New York  City to start a family and a lavender farm in Texas. Sound familiar?

We started with a hundred plants in the field in front of my parent’s old home. We mounded up soil to create extra drainage as the land was very flat. I remember  Lincoln in just a diaper toddling around with a spade and attempting to dig his own  holes. “I lavender Mommy?” he inquired. Now Lincoln’s a teenager, who is not always so thrilled about living in the country.

A year after returning to Virginia, I bought Seven Oaks Farm, renovated the farmhouse built in 1860, and moved in with plans to build Mom and Dad the home  on a knoll they’d always dreamed of on the farm property. That was accomplished,  and as they had sold their old home, we moved the 100 lavender bushes six miles up the road to Seven Oaks and elongated the farm name to “Seven Oaks Lavender Farm.”

We began offering a pick-your-own experience at the farm in 2005. My sister, Dianne Bignoli, moved to the farm for a few years and added a lot of value to the business. Her daughters, Eva and Sofia, joined Lincoln in being third generation lavender farmers while they lived at the farm. Together, as a family, we have grown the  business from a few visitors trickling in and a very diminutive line of lavender products, to doing a booming pick-your-own business, creating a high-quality,  extensive product line: mostly made here at the farm, as well as selling fresh lavender and our lavender products at the farm, online, and in retail markets.

We are often asked to speak to groups on our farm’s success. And during the Q. and A. section,  we always answer that inevitable question, “How did you get the idea to start a  lavender farm?”

The Story Continues…

What is the history of your farm?

The Seven Oaks farmhouse built in 1860.  The property was so named for seven large oak trees, measuring in circumference of their trunks up to 13 feet.  Two of those original seven remain standing on the property.  Also a cluster of large American boxwood bushes are quite old in age. When you own an old home, as some of you may know, it’s a labor of love. And we work almost year round work to keep the 16 acre property looking loved.

The following year after the house was built the Civil War began about 20 miles away a July 21, 1861 with The Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia.  In quite a coincidence our great grandfather, Henry Clay Campbell, fought in a Pennsylvania regiment that participated in the battle, Auburn I and II, the perimeters of which contain our farm property.  How funny to think that Henry Clay trod over the land which would be bought by his great-great-granddaughter so many years later.  By the way, Henry Clay, although wounded twice, returned to the war and fought until the very last day and was present at the Surrender at Appomattox.

The original foundations of the house date to 1860. One can see the hand-hewn cedar logs in the attic which farm the roof. And this part of the house rests on large logs as it’s base. Then it was two rooms down and two rooms up with a fireplace in each room. In the 1920’s and addition was added to the back of the house and a cellar dug underneath it. This added two bedrooms, an indoor bathroom and the current kitchen and back porch. How many weddings, births and deaths must have happened here? And 160 Christmasses!

Our family has owned the farm since 2002. Deborah’s son, Lincoln (pictured with apple), was raised here and many of his cousins and friends have enjoyed the freedom to roam Seven Oaks afforded them. And it doesn’t hurt that grandparents, Grams and Beebs, are right up the hill when they were foraging for popsicles in the summer.

The other house on the property, the house at the top of the hill facing the lavender field, was built for Glenn and Edie (Grams and Beebs) around 2005.  Glenn and Edie, as young marrieds, dreamed they would someday have a house on a knoll.  They had to wait till their last home, but this dream came true.

There are a couple “secret garden” pathways through the tall boxwood hedges. As with many homes…we never use the front door. It’s always this side door that we use. If a delivery gets dropped off at the front door…it takes awhile to figure it out.

Seven Oaks was once a portion of Charles Carter’s “Woodstock Farm.” He willed the property to Bernard M. Carter. In November of 1817, Bernard and Lucy Grymes Carter conveyed two farms, Woodstock Farm and the other known as “The Forrest” to William Fitzhugh Carter. At the time Woodstock Farm contained 1937 acres and The Forrest contained 1288 acres for a total of 3225 acres.

In March of 1835, William F. Carter conveyed the two farms to Edward H. Carmichael, John S. Welford and Murray Forbes for the sum of $8,500 Less than eight months later, the three owners sold the two farms to Charles J. Stovin for $35,500. The three must have been real estate speculators!

Charles Stovin had an extensive landed estate around Catlett. Between 1837 and 1846, Stovin purchased five tracts of land between Catlett and Auburn, on Cedar Run, much on the south side of the Dumfries Road. He bought some 83 acres of land, including a mill from Henry and Henrietta Fitzhugh that lay on both sides of Cedar Run in 1837. He continued buying up land until in 1852 when he sold the Woodstock Farm to Gilbert M. Bastable and James I. Hunton for $57,495.

And then Woodstock Farm was divided. Hunton sold 27 acres of the farm to A.S. McLearen in June of 1867. This land stayed in the McLearen family a little more than forty years. In March of 1908, the Fauquier County Court of Chancery directed the sale of 17 1/2 acres of the tract in a cause style “McLearen v. McLearen. George McLearen was the highest bidder at $1000.00. George conveyed the land to Annie P. Boorman who later married S.C. Wortham and they held a mortgage on the land for Clarence and Laura Payne. The Paynes also owned other parcels nearby returning the farm to over 100 acres.

The Payne’s defaulted on a payment and the land was sold at public auction to Carl Glaettli, A.J. Day, W.H. Day and L.W. Trenis. They then conveyed their interest to Andrew J. Day. Andrew and Margaret Day sold the property to W.B. Weaver who then sold it to Bud Beane in 1934, Bud and his wife ran a dairy on acreage totalling 118 acres for many years. They sold 15.9928 acres of it in 1976 to Alyce G. Russell and her daughter Ruth. R. Cobb. This tract known as “Seven Oaks” remained a home for Alyce until she passed away in 2001. Alyce G. Russell was a daughter to the Glaettli family who have retained much of the acreage surrounding. Alyce Russell was a well-loved member of the community and known for her dedication to family and to charitable causes. Her love of all things flowering are evident the flower beds with sedum, poppies, and more. She also spread thousands of daffodil bulbs around the property which turn March into a sea of happy yellow flower faces.

If you have memories or remembrances of Seven Oaks Farm please share them with us so we can post them here. Send to: Deborah@sevenoakslavenderfarm.com

What is the history of the area?

In 1608 Captain John Smith, the first European to explore the area, reported that the Whonkentia (a subgroup of the Siouan-speaking Manahoac tribe) inhabited the area. 

Originally Fauquier County was part of The Fairfax Grant, which was created as a result of the English Civil War in the mid-1600’s as a political payoff to allies of King Charles II.  The Culpeper family retained the grant for 50 years during the era of Charles I and Charles II.  The Fairfax name is associated with the grant today because a daughter of a Culpeper married a Fairfax in 1690.

The Manahoac tribe were forced out around 1870 by the Iroquois.  The Six Nations ceded the entire region including Fauquier County to the Virginia Colony at the Treaty of Albany in 1722.  As part of the deal the tribes were to reside west of the Blue Ridge mountains and the colonist to keep to the east side.  As we know, that deal did not hold.  Fauquier County was founded in 1759 and was named for Francis Fauquier, Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Virginia from 1758-1768. 

In summer 1749, 17-year-old George Washington presented his résumé to the Culpeper County court and secured his first government job, as county surveyor of Culpeper, which then included Madison and Rappahannock counties.  He would also pass near Seven Oaks Farm during his time as a surveyor.

John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, (1801-1835) was born within 10 miles of the farm in 1755.  His court opinions helped lay the basis for the constitutional law which many say made the Supreme Court a coequal brand of government along with the legislative and executive branches.

Civil War History of Farm:

In quite a coincidence our great grandfather, Henry Clay Campbell, fought in a Pennsylvania regiment that participated in the battle, Auburn I and II, the perimeters of which contain our farm property.  How funny to think that when Seven Oaks house was built in 1860, soon after, Henry Clay trod over the land which would be bought by his great-great-grandaughter so many years later.  By the way, Henry Clay, although wounded twice, returned to the war and fought until the very last day and was present at the Surrender at Appomattox.