The Alexander Poland Story
A cattle dealer ("Drover"), Alexander Poland was said to have had a
plantation in Leesburg, Virginia where he grew cotton and tobacco
(family lore: "with 100 slaves").
He was an orphan, "bound" by The Overseers of the Poor" in 1834 at age
14 to a person named John Wade "to learn the business of
farming". There's a space in the court order for the first name
of the dead parent ("_______ Poland") which is not filled in, so the
court didn't know or pretended not to know who his no-longer-surviving
parent was. Strange in a small town.
A few years later in 1846, when Alexanderwas on his own, a 13 year old
girl named Lavinia Sutherland was bound to him under a similar order,
in order: "to learn the arts of being a housekeeper and seamstress".
Alexander is not to be found in the 1840 or 1850 census.
Alexander's will, seemingly unnecessarily,
specifies that his oldet child, Mary, born 1839, was to receive her
share of his estate.
Alexander lived at 246 Loudoun Street, in a house probably originally
owned by a family named Rice. There may have been some
intermarriage with
his and the Rice families.
Alexander (aka "Sandy") Poland joined the Oddfellows Lodge in Leesburg
5/13/1853. He was mentioned twice in the New Democrat, the
local paper, as having been elected councilman, in May of 1859 and 1860.
Alexander and family (wife and 8 children) were listed in his household
in the 1860 census (wherein one slave was listed). His
profession was given as a Drover, and he was shown with real property
worth $13,000 (most neighbors had $1,000 - $6,000), and personal
property worth $900 (most neighbors had more, several thousand).
The Polands had a total of 18 children. The years of birth shown
for
the twelve children for which names can be found are approximate,
mostly taken from the ages reported on the census.
A child of Alexander, William A Poland, was reported by Alexander to
have died 4/4/57 of water on the brain at 1 year 5 months of age.
In the 1870 census, Poland property was listed at $1,600, in the
name of his wife Margaret. Three children were listed, two born
since the previous 1860 census.
___________
Alexander was assassinated, shot, by the butcher's son (perhaps a
Moseby guerilla) in December 1863, in front of his family in their
dining room in
Leesburg, when he was observed carving ham to feed (occupying) Yankee
guests. The butcher's son himself was later killed, either by
Yankees or by Moseby's guerillas.
At the time Alexander was killed, his daughter Margaret was 15.
She reported that the assassins had broken her doll.
CLICK HERE TO READ A CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT OF THE EVENT
___________
The Civil War battle of Ball's Bluff was supposedly actually fought on
Alexander's wife' s (family's?) property.
FAMILY ORIGINS:
Original spelling of name: Polen? Polin? Poling?
Polan? One typo was "Pollard" or "Polard".
Possible ancestors, maybe through adoption: Daniel Barnett Polen
came from UK, Sussex to Brooklyn, NY (family had been given a coat of
arms by George III). Daniel moved to Philadelphia, married widow
Hannah Peg Stevens. They moved to Loudoun County, Virginia, had
twin sons: Nathaniel and William, 1769. Hannah died in
childbirth.
Twin William had a son, John, who married Harriet Cross in 1804.
In 1830, they moved to East Springfield, Ohio. John Poland died 1852.
Other mentions:
Charles Polend (sic, e); Company C, Prince William Regiment,
enlisted in Leesburg. George Polen (sic, en, no d)
****
From Carol Thomson, a descendant of Thomas Poland (m. Clara Mae Kiltlow
in Fredericksburg MD):
Family lore: Alexander was born in
England, orphaned, and emigrated to Leesburg.
He was entered in the 1840 census as Sandy Polien.
He was entered in at least one record as Polard (or Pollard)
****
The family burial plot, owned by Alexander, is in Union Cemetery in
Leesburg; lot # 372A. It contains:
Grave #
Person
Birth
Death
Place Marker?
1 Poland,
Alexander
12/23/1863 Leesburg
no
2 Poland,
James
Edward
12/14/1903
DC?
no
3 Poland,
Margaret
12/1/1889
DC
no
4 Poland,
Hester 4
yrs
5/1/1858
Leesburg
yes
5 Poland,
William
4/1/1858 Leesburg
6 Poland,
James A 2
yrs
4/4/1843
Leesburg
yes
7 ?
8 ?
9
Poland, Benjamin
(probably)
CSA marker (no headstone)
10 ?
11 ?
12 ?
Neighboring lots are # 366A, Fiester family, and #374, Wright (probably
Susan Agnes Poland / Hoffman / Wright).
The Fiester plot graves are:
Grave #
Person
Birth
Death
Place Marker?
1 Orange,
Susan
5/3/1800 12/2/1877
Leesburg mother
2 Orange,
James 65
years 2/19/1878
Leesburg father
3 Feaster,
George W 64 years
8/29/1891
Leesburg
no
4 Feaster,
Laura
12/11/1906
no
5 ?
6 Feaster,
George Washington 20 days 4/7/1857 son of
G&L
There are files in the Leesburg Library which cross-reference
Alexander: Louis File, the Shemstone House, and the Goslan House.
The Margaret Fiester
Poland Story
Margaret, born in Leesburg about 1821, was from a family of Dutch
origin: Pfichter or Phiester, probably anglicized to Feaster
and/or Fiester. She died in Washington DC of Bright's
Disease; her body was brought back to Leesburg for burial in the
family plot there.
Other notations of the family in Leesburg: there is a Feaster family
plot in the Leesburg Union Cemetery containing George W Feaster
(1827-8/29/1891), possibly Margaret's brother, Laura (1840-12/11/1906)
maybe George's wife, George W (died an infant 4/71857), and
Fannie Moss (1861-9/19/1941) with two of her children, Walter L
b:3/9/1881, d:10/2/1918 (father William); and Myrtle O,
b:10/28/1901, d: 11/23/1912. A William F Feaster (enrolled as
Fiechter) was baptized in the Methodist Church as an adult
4/11/1875, withdrew when he married Amelia F Moss 9/7/1880.
George F Feaster married Laura Jane Currey 3/8/1849. A Sarah
Feaster, b:~1818, married James Underwood 19/1858.
Hypothesis: Feaster siblings were Sarah b:1818, Margaret b:1821
and George W. b1827. George W married Laura, had sons George F
and William F, who married Amelia Fannie Moss to have two children,
Walter and Myrtle.
Magaret's birthday occurred in 1820, after July 18 (date of 1860
census, which lists her as 39; census of 1870 lists her as 50).
Alexander and Margaret Poland lived at 246 Loudoun Street, in Leesburg,
Loudoun County, Virginia, and had 18 children.
The Polands were not shown in the 1850 census report; they were
shown in 1860 with 10 children, and Margaret (not Alexander) was shown
in the 1870 report with four children, three of them born since the
previous census. A child's death had been reported in 1848.
No Poland listings appear in the 1850 - 1866 marriage records.
But
such records at that time were not compulsory, and the civil war
interrupted record-keeping. The local newspaper (The Mirror) was
not
published during the war.
___________
The battle of Ball's Bluff in the Civil War, 10/21/1861 (skirmishes
occurred the two days before and after) was supposedly actually fought
on Poland's land. The battlefield was a trapezoidal 10 acre
clearing, contained within a semi-circular gulch. The
Yankee retreat was down the bluff and across Harrison Island in the
Potomac. The Poland
plantation could have been on that island, or atop the bluff west of
the battlefield near the Rust house (which burned down ~1970).
The Ball name was supposedly given the battle because George Ball
was a prominent local politician.
Among adjacent residents in the 1860 census report were Rust and Ball.
___________
On 4/12/1869, Margaret won a lawsuit against one Rice, for two adjacent
lots, one with a frame house, the other with a stable, located on the
north side on Loudoun Street, West side of town, originally owned by
her husband Alexander.
___________
Alexander provided Union forces with supplies, but his records were
destroyed by Confederates. His widow Margaret applied to
Congress for a pension, which was granted, as her husband had been shot
serving the cause of the North. She finally was also granted
compensation for the supplies Alexander provided but only 50 years
after the fact (!), in Woodrow Wilson's Administration (bill
signed by him), with considerable scale-back by the Court of
Claims from the finally
Congressionally-approved claim, and with no adjustment for the loss in
value of money in the interim. The National Archives contains
voluminous handwritten records of the hearings held every ten years on
behalf of her, and other, claimants' relief bills.
A man named Pfiester (by family lore a descendant of Margaret's family)
was Dwight D. Eisenhower's Virginia estate manager.