[5][6] As some of the first settlers in Prince William County, Charles and his brother Bertrand first came to the area from Maryland to establish an iron furnace operation on the Occoquan River.

[12] On this property were the ruins of an old English fort built in 1673 at the direction of Virginia Governor William Berkeley to protect colonists from attacks by neighboring Susquehannock Indians.

As the house was constructed before the days of saw mills, every lath was rived, and every timber, joist and even cornice was hewed out of the surrounding woods (as evidenced today by the axe marks on the reverse sides).

[18] Described as an eccentric "man of distinction and liberal fortune," Ewell was said to ride to Dumfries to tend to his business affairs on his "fiery black steed.

[10] Ewell borrowed money and sold land in order to send Thomas to Philadelphia to study medicine under the renowned Benjamin Rush.

In a letter to his father in December 1802, Thomas Ewell wrote: "[My] intention in coming to [Bel Air] was not to dance—but to add to your pleasure and happiness—which is among the first wishes of my heart.

"[10] Ten years after Ewell's death, his daughter Charlotte (not to be confused with her mother of the same name) authored an elegy in memory of her father: Early he woo'd fair virtue for his guide, And rarely wander'd from her guardian side, By him the needy never were denied, He sooth'd their sorrows, and their wants supplied.

He mourn'd the contests of the neighbouring poor, And open'd wide his peace-restoring door; Where soon his wisdom taught their strifes to cease, Reviv'd their loves, and sent them home in peace.

For large events, the partition wall between the drawing room and central hall was removed, making a huge combined space for "merry-making and match-making in full swing.

[18][22] It is said that the crowds were so great at Mariamne and James Craik's wedding reception that the drawing room floors had to be propped up by big cedar posts in the basement as the guests engaged in a rousing Virginia reel.

[6][14] George and Martha spent the night as newlyweds at Bel Air on April 5, 1759, on their honeymoon journey to Mount Vernon from Williamsburg, where Washington had just started his first term in the House of Burgesses.

[5][6][9][10][12] A small trunkful of Jefferson's letters brought from Bel Air were regrettably lost by the Ewells of Stony Lonesome during the Civil War.

With much delight he often speaks of the days spent in the walls of William & Mary college in company with the president; And with still more Joy he views the glorious work in which you have since been so successfully engaged; altho at one time he dreaded the effects of a change in the government.

Several other outbuildings associated with the plantation were located close by—including a barn, stable, kitchen, blacksmith shop, icehouse, smokehouse, and drying shed.

In an elegy about her father written several years after his death, she wrote: "The slaves whom Heav'n to his care consign'd, Ne'er felt the terrors of a slavish mind; Well fed, warm clad, to moderate labours prest, They loved their fetters, and their bondage blest.

Like many early American patriots, Jesse Ewell was a freeholder, a wealthy landowner who was not connected to the Crown nobility or the government through social class.

On December 9, 1774, Ewell joined other freeholders in the county to take action to sustain the First Continental Congress, which had been formed in September 1774 in response to the Intolerable Acts.

On April 22, an American militia unit seized British gunpowder supplies at Williamsburg, and the Special Committee passed a resolution thanking Patrick Henry for leading the mission.

[27] In 1789, a local planter named William Helm accused him of nepotism for a militia appointment of his nephew, Charles Ewell, Jr., but was exonerated after a speedy trial.

On May 23, 1825, Weems died during a book-selling trip in Beaufort, South Carolina, and the following winter his remains were brought to Dumfries by boat and buried at a corner of the Ewell family cemetery at Bel Air.

Sometime before 1840, Bel Air was acquired by Jesse Davis, a resident of King George County who owned it until 1848, when it was sold at auction for $1501 to Chapman Lee, who operated it as a farm with no slaves.

[6][12][35][36] In 1885, George Carr Round, a prominent Manassas attorney and member of the Virginia General Assembly, began an ambitious and costly restoration of Bel Air, which had suffered through long periods of abandonment.

The colonial revival gardens were completely restored between 2013 and 2015, when the blighted English boxwoods were largely replaced with the disease-resistant green velvet variety.

It appears to be a transitional house between the southern colonial and the Georgian styles or a vernacular attempt to imitate one or the other or combine elements that Charles Ewell desired.

It is unclear whether the water table is original or a later addition, but it is entirely mortared together with Portland cement, and not historically accurate lime based putty that is found in the brickwork above.

The large dining hall was called the "wool room" by the Ewells, who used it as their prime living space until it was converted for more menial uses when the upper floors of the mansion were finished.

Connected to the kitchen is a laundry room, but the iron shackles that were found imbedded in the wall point to the original use of the room—a dungeon for quarrelsome Indians and disobedient slaves.

[9][12][14] Like the main floor plan of nearly every other colonial-era manor home near the Potomac—including Belvoir, Gunston Hall, and Mount Vernon before George Washington added to it—Bel Air contains a wide central passage flanked by two rooms on either side.

[42] The stately main floor—with 11-foot ceilings, wide pine-plank floors, and large central hall adorned by Greek key cornices and reeded archway—was designed for entertaining.

The small bedroom above the stairs was Parson Weems' study; it is said that he selected the remotest room as his own in order to secure sanctuary from his mother-in-law.