Next month will mark the 50th anniversary of the permanent preservation of Arlington’s oldest existing residential structure.
The Ball-Sellers House, which began life in the mid-1700s as a two-room log cabin, was donated in February 1975 by its last private owner to the Arlington Historical Society. The society then refurbished the Glencarlyn home and opened portions of it to the public as its contribution to the nation’s bicentennial celebration of 1976.
With the nation now beginning preparations for its 250th birthday — or “semi-sesquicentennial” — there will be a renewed look at the history of the Ball-Sellers House, and a deeper dive in all those who called it home.
An exhibition set to open in April at the Arlington Historical Museum on Arlington Ridge Road will present a “huge exhibit” of artifacts from the home, said Annette Benbow.
Benbow has served as the chair of the Ball-Sellers House Committee for more than a decade, and recently spoke to ARLnow about the efforts to tell more people about the story’s unusual and extensive story of survival.
Using the newly renovated second floor of the historical museum, the society will have the space to tell the full story of nearly three centuries of the home’s history, making the Ball-Sellers House the oldest home located inside the Capital Beltway.
From Lord Fairfax to John Ball
The Ball-Sellers House takes its name from its first owner (John Ball) and its last (Marian Sellers, who donated it to the historical society).
Historical records can trace the property’s origins all the way back to the 1742 land grant from (Thomas) Lord Fairfax of Cameron to Ball. A facsimile copy is held in the the archives of the Charlie Clark Center for Local History at Arlington Central Library.
Ball’s land grant included 166 acres in the Four Mile Run watershed. It was a mere snippet of the vast holdings of the sixth Lord Fairfax (1693-1781), who bestowed acreage on those deemed suitable in an effort to settle the local area.
Fairfax was born in England but later moved to Virginia to claim his vast inheritance, becoming the only British peer to reside in the American colonies.
Friends with George Washington, Fairfax was left largely alone during the American Revolution despite royalist leanings, dying at the robust age of 88 before its conclusion.
Thomas Fairfax’s peerage, which continues today in the 14th Lord Fairfax, passed in 1781 to his younger brother, Robert, who in the 1790s was reimbursed by the British government for the Virginia lands that were confiscated from the family at the conclusion of the war.
But that is getting ahead of the story. We first must head back to the 1740s.
John Ball is believed to have constructed the original part of the existing home, a log house, sometime before 1750. A lean-to frame was also incorporated into the structure.
Ball appears to have been what today would be termed middle class. His will records his personal belongings, which were not insubstantial, and he also operated a mill-grinding operation.
John Ball died in 1766. A proviso in his will directed that the home and acreage be sold, with the proceeds used to support his widow and their five daughters.
Ball’s widow later went to court to successfully enforce a provision of British law that, despite the sale, granted her lifetime occupancy of a one third of the property.
Connection to George Washington?
The Ball house and acreage were purchased in 1772 by William Carlin (1732-1820) for 100 Virginia pounds. By one online calculator, that equates to perhaps $9,000 in 2000 dollars, or $16,300 today.
In contrast, the current county-government property assessment for the house and its quarter-acre of land is $642,000. Because it is owned by a non-profit organization, there is no property tax due, although the historical society is responsible for the government’s $258 stormwater levy on the property.
Like Fairfax, William Carlin was another who had a connection to George Washington, having served as his tailor in Alexandria.
In county-government tax documents related to the property, dating from the 1970s, there is a typewritten addendum that “Washington visited here.” Beyond that notation, however, the historical record is empty.
“We know he knew him,” Benbow said of the Carlin-Washington connection, adding that Washington had surveyed his own landholdings nearby after the war.
But with nothing noted in Washington’s diaries or other records, “there is no evidence” of Washington ever stepped foot onto the property, she said.
Those with a nose for history may know that George Washington’s mother, Mary Washington, was by birth a Ball. But her family was unconnected to the Balls that first owned the home, according to the historical record and modern-day DNA research.
Keeping it in the family
When John Carlin died, his will stipulated that the still expansive property be sold off in multiple lots small enough for people of modest means to purchase them.
It was a noble thought, but proved impractical. In the end the lot was divided into three parts, with each one purchased by Carlin’s three sons.
The Civil War caused the Carlin family to scatter, with at least two joining the Confederate Army. Though records are scant, it is possible the home was used by a Union officer during wartime.
Unlike the descendants of Robert E. Lee, who in the 1880s received an enormous payout for the government’s 1861 confiscation of the Arlington House plantation, the Carlin family’s post-war quest for recompense was denied, Benbow said.
Memorializing those enslaved
Three “stumbling stones” found just outside the Ball-Sellers House on 3rd Street S. are part of a joint effort of the Arlington Arlington Historical Society and the Black Heritage Museum of Arlington.
“Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington” is a multi-pronged effort to research and commemorate the life histories of people who were enslaved across Arlington.
Some were held at Arlington House or other large plantations, but many were part of smaller groups enslaved at smaller farms or individual homes.
Researchers have had to mine data from multiple jurisdictions, as the lands of modern-day Arlington earlier had been part of Stafford County (1664-1730), Prince William County (1730-41), Fairfax County (1742-1800) and the District of Columbia (1800-47).
The stumbling stones — six-inch bronze plaques — have been created by students at Arlington Tech at the Arlington Career Center.
There is nothing in the historical record to suggest John Ball was a slaveholder. But Benbow said that — as he had daughters but no sons — it was possible he purchased enslaved people’s services from some of his neighbors to perform manual labor.
“We don’t know if that ever occurred, but it was common practice,” she said.
The Carlin family enslaved at least a few people during its occupancy of the home, which stretched to the time of emancipation.
In front of the Ball-Sellers House, the markers, installed in the fall of 2023, recognize a woman named Nancy, who was born around 1775 and died sometime in the 1830s. They also recognize two men whose names are unknown to history.
That lack of additional information means there’s currently no way to know if there are living descendants of those who were enslaved.
Post-war subdivision into Glencarlyn
In 1880, the home was expanded. Later that same decade, more significant changes to the property occurred.
In 1887, Gen. Samuel Burdett and a business partner purchased 132 acres of the parcel for $8,000, carving them into about 380 residential lots to take advantage of trolley connections to D.C.
Thus began the community of Glencarlyn.
Burdett, who lived in a grand home nearby until his death in 1914, had quite the life story. Born in England in 1836, he emigrated to the U.S. at age 12, was an ally of abolitionist John Brown, and during the Civil War rose from private to captain in the U.S. Army.
An attorney, Burdett represented Missouri’s 5th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1869-73, and was commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1885-86. He and his wife Nancy are buried together at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Ball home remained occupied and survived the development taking place around it, despite little to no interest in historic preservation during the late 19th century.
The 20th century and preservation
After running through the ownership of several families, the home was purchased in 1920 by William and Julia Powell, who lived in it for 49 years.
The home then passed to Marian Rhinehart Sellers, their niece. She had lived in the home with her aunt and uncle as a child and graduated from what then was Washington-Lee High School.
Upon her marriage to George Sellers (also from Arlington), the couple moved to Vienna, where Marian spent 40 years working for the town government, ultimately as town clerk.
Settled in Vienna, Sellers in the late 1960s had no interest in returning to the Arlington home, which was still lacking modern conveniences.
Despite interest from prospective purchasers — the home was then assessed at about $10,600, or about $111,000 in today’s dollars — Sellers opted to gift the property to the historical society in exchange for $1.
To honor her philanthropic spirit, the society attached to the property the name of Sellers, who died in June 2011 at age 78.
With due ceremony, the Arlington Historical Society took ownership of the home on Feb. 24, 1975, with the expectation of doing enough restoration work to bring it into habitable condition.
Donald Orth, who served as president of the Arlington Historical Society at the time, said then that preservation of the property marked a new era of sorts in the field of history.
“We have saved many of the grand homes of the historically affluent,” Orth said of past national preservation efforts, “but most cabins of yeoman farmers who settled this country have been lost.”
Raising the cash needed
The historical society in 1975 set up a preservation committee to lead fund-raising and administrative efforts related to the home. It ranks included Dean Allard, Sally Boss, Chester Brasse, John Hebert, Lucille Ireland, Ruth Ward and Anne Webb.
Much of the effort to purchase the property and plan for its restoration was in the form of pro-bono services, including those of Chester Brasse (legal), Alfred Heck (appraisal) and Walter Macomber (restoration plan). The Archeological Society of Northern Virginia conducted a preliminary dig on the site in 1975, as well.
But the restoration work itself required cash. The society in 1975 set a fundraising goal of $25,000, with plans for:
- Making level the foundation and floor of the original portion of the home.
- Improving the wiring, heating and kitchen facility in the 19th-century addition.
- Reconstructing the fireplace in the original portion of the home.
- Adding a new roof and touching up the plaster.
Within a few months, cash was beginning to flow into the effort. Among the groups that provided support: the Service League of Northern Virginia, Daughters of the American Revolution, Woman’s Club of Lyon Village, Thomas Nelson chapter Woman’s Club of Arlington, Glencarlyn Civic Association, Forest Glen Garden Club, Powhatan Springs Woman’s Club, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Kiwanis Club of South Arlington and the Washington Forrest Foundation.
Living Through the Renovation
And at this point in the story enters the Page family: Ware, Linda and their children, 6-year-old Sherri and 4-year-old Kyle.
Residing in a nearby neighborhood, the Pages agreed to move into the home for a year, part of an effort by the historical society to ward off potential vandals during the renovation.
“We’re as excited about the house as the historical society,” Linda Page told the Washington Star as they were about to move in.
The family knew there would be challenges, and there were, from moisture issues to a ceiling collapse from which Linda Page escaped mostly unscathed.
And then there were the termites, ants and spiders.
“Those creeper-crawlers, whose families may have resided under the house for a couple of centuries, were not about to give up their territory without a fight,” Linda Page told The Washington Post in a September 1975 feature article on their experience.
The insects were temporarily defeated but have never completely been vanquished. In 2023, the house was threatened by powderpost beetles, which are ravenous when it comes to devouring wood.
To address that infestation, the historical society successfully raised over $6,000 through a GoFundMe campaign that attracted 125 donors. The funds were used to battle the beetle, at least to a standoff.
Keeping watch over the past 50 years
Throughout the period of historical-society ownership, there have been tenants occupying the 19th-century portion of the property, providing the society with rental income and, in some cases, caretaker services.
Among them was Jack Foster, an original member of the historical society who spent about a decade at the Ball-Sellers House, Benbow said. He maintained the property and kept meticulous records of the number of visitors.
The current tenant-caretaker, Margaret Wagner, has lived on the site since 2013.
It wasn’t just the bugs bedeviling the Page family that challenged the home over the past half-century. Maintenance efforts are ongoing, and on the to-do list for 2025 is finding a roofer knowledgeable in historic properties to attend to missing cedar tiles.
Researchers explore history
One possibility for celebrating the heritage of the Ball-Sellers House could the reissuance and updating of “The House That John Built,” a 1993 work authored by former historical society president Martha Orth.
Orth culled through court, census, estate and church records and town directories to provide information on the property’s eight owners before it came to historical-society ownership.
“I was amazed at how much I did find” during research, Orth (1930-2021) said during a presentation a decade ago at Arlington Central Library. “It’s a very, very simple, humble house, so I didn’t think I’d find much.”
Copies of the book are available in the reference section at Central Library, but a reissuance (with updates) could bring the story to a wider audience, society officials said.
The property is embraced by the surrounding community, said Brandon Hemel, president of the Glencarlyn Civic Association.
“It is a rarity to have a building such as the Ball-Sellers House preserved so anyone can visit it and see what life was like in the pre-colonial era,” he told ARLnow.
It was one of a number of sites with historic provenance in the community, Hemel said.
“Glencarlyn is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, planned neighborhood in Arlington, and the Glencarlyn Civic Association is honored to have many historic places in our neighborhood — including Glencarlyn Park, Glencarlyn Library, the Moses Ball Spring and the Ball-Sellers House,” he said
The civic association’s newsletter periodically spotlights the community’s history, including a two-part series in 2021 from Tim Aiken.
Historic provenance, COVID closing
The home’s provenance was celebrated in 1975 with inclusion on both the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. The citation for the latter noted the home’s original clapboard roof, located underneath later roofing, as a signature attraction.
Those designations were purely honorific, providing no specific protection against significant alterations or even razing of the property.
In 1978, however, the County Board designated the Ball-Sellers House a local historic district, which does provide protections.
The property is open to the public from spring to fall, with rare exceptions. The most notable extended closure began in the spring of 2020, the Ball-Sellers House was shuttered to the public owing to COVID. It would not reopen for more than a year.
Celebrating women of the Ball-Sellers House
As part of the 50th-anniversary celebrations, the historical society on March 13 plans a special Women’s History Month forum on “The Outstanding Women of the Ball-Sellers House.”
The presentation promises a new look at the property’s history and personalities, society officials said:
“We’ll shine a spotlight on women who have a special place in the history of the house, in the county, and in even our nation’s history. We’ll learn about Elizabeth Payne Ball, the wife of the builder, who took a man to court to sue for her inheritance; Irene Young, a suffragist and divorcee when society viewed divorce was a ‘dirty word’ and saw it as ALWAYS being the woman’s fault; and Julia Powell, one of the first enlisted U.S. Navy yeomen in the First World War. We can’t help but also talk about Marian Sellers, her life and her legacy at the house.”
The program, to be held at Marymount University, will be presented by Benbow.
Nearly 400 years of the Ball family
Each year, some of those who come to visit the Ball-Sellers House inform the volunteer docents they are descended from John Ball, the original owner.
If by chance the surname of the visitor is Ball, they’re unlikely to be a direct descendant, as John Ball had no sons to carry on the surname.
But there were his five daughters, all of whom married and most or all of whom had children. A number of John Ball’s siblings also had families that grew through the generations.
Some of them stayed in the local area, while others had dispersed by the 1800s to Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Florida.
“The family is far-flung,” said Benbow, who points those interested to a 600-page genealogical history of the family that provides extensive information.
All the descendants trace their lineage back to the first colonial Ball, who was believed to have emigrated from England in the first half of the 17th century.
While some family trees peter out, others grow and grow. One example, though not related to the Ball-Sellers House: The 22 male passengers of the Mayflower for whom genealogical records are fairly well kept are believed be the ancestors of an astounding 35 million people today, including 10 million in the U.S.
Given that the first colonial Ball family ancestor emigrated around the same time as those on the Mayflower, there potentially are tens of thousands or more people alive today who share him as a common ancestor.
One of the ideas for celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday is to bring as many of the family members together in Arlington as possible.
“I’d really love to have a Ball family reunion,” Benbow told ARLnow.
Much of the information for this article came from archival material held by the Charlie Clark Center for Local History at Arlington Central Library, as well an a wide-ranging interview with Annette Benbow.
This reporting was supported by the ARLnow Press Club. Join to support in-depth local journalism — and get an exclusive early morning email with a preview of that day’s planned news coverage.
