History

You can find Longview Farm at the first bend in the Potomac River, 18 miles south of the Washington Monument. Sailing ships once passed, stopping at Mount Vernon, across the river, and the ports of Alexandria and Georgetown further north, before slipping down the river laden with tobacco bound for the Atlantic and England. At that time and long before that, the Piscataway tribe fished, hunted and farmed in the area. Captain John Smith, the first European visitor to the bend in the river, named the creek after them – Piscataway Creek.
Bald eagles nest in our woods (and eye our chickens!) Deer, foxes and wild turkey are in residence. A traditional tobacco barn, where tobacco leaves once grown on the farm were speared onto sticks to hang and cure from the rafters, now houses our tractor. Piles of tobacco sticks remain, but are now used as spacers between the wood boards cut from fallen trees on the farm, stacked and drying to be used for fencing or barn siding.

A bluff rises above the fields, where the house was built in the 1930’s to take advantage of the view – Washington DC straight ahead and Mount Vernon off to the left. The farm has been in the Breese family since the 1940’s.