Figure of the Week

During the War Between the States, John Albert Evans (1832-1921) served in the 9th Virginia Cavalry.  He married Margaret Jane Homes (1833-1853), the daughter of James Homes.  John spent some years as a boatman in Wide Water and later lived at Onville on or very  near what’s now the Quantico Marine Corps reservation.  In 1899 John was “the depot agent at Onville” for a steam powered tram or train that ran between that place and Coal Landing on Aquia Creek.  The tramway “carries over it 10,000 feet of lumber each trip” (Free Lance, May 30, 1899).  Much of what later became the Marine Corps reservation was heavily timbered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  This was cut into lumber, railroad ties, and firewood and shipped to Alexandria, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.  John A. Evans was found dead in a pile of brush he’d been burning.