The Reid-Ballard House
The original Reid log home (left portion of structure in the sketch) was built by Joseph Reid before the Revolution on land inherited by his wife, Barbara Walker Reid. The house and land passed to succeeding generations of Reids and upon his death in 1860, Col. John Reid willed the house, 143 acres of land and two slaves, Daniel and Harriet, to his granddaughter, Mary Lillie Reid Thrift.
On September 1, 1862, during the Second Manassas Campaign, the Reid farmhouse was a prominent landmark in the Battle of Ox Hill or Chantilly. From the vicinity of this house, Federal infantry led by Generals Isaac Stevens and Phillip Kearny advanced to engage the Confederate infantry from A.P. Hill’s and Ewell’s divisions of General Stonewall Jackson’s Left Wing. From positions near the Reid House, federal artillery supported the attack, shelling the Confederates in the woods at the north end of the Reid farm fields.
During the battle, the Reid House sheltered wounded Federal soldiers, who were later carried to the Millan place, known as Oakley, where a field hospital had been established.
In 1874, Mary Thrift married former Confederate Lt. John N. Ballard, a veteran of Mosby’s 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry. At the Reid—now Ballard House, the Ballards raised seven children, worked the farm, known as Fruit Vale, and became prominent citizens of Fairfax County.
In 1915 the Ballards deeded a 50 x 100-foot lot for the erection of monuments to generals Kearny and Stevens who were killed in the battle. The monuments can be found 435 yards northeast of this marker.
John and Mary Ballard died in the 1920s, the farm was divided, and the house passed from the family in 1964. In 1965, after nearly two centuries, the Reid-Ballard house was demolished for construction of homes in Cedar Lakes Estates.