Earlier this week, we posted a picture of a prominent figure in Ross Valley history and asked you all to guess who it was.
ACG was the first to correctly identify that the picture was Lord Fairfax. Email me at kellyd@patch.com for your Patch swag.
According to the Fairfax Historical Commission website:
The town of Fairfax derives its name from Lord Charles Snowden Fairfax, tenth Baron of Cameron, Scotland, whose British ancestors were given the grant of land by the British Crown which became the province and then the state of Virginia. Charles was lured west by the gold fever. Here at his estate, known as "Bird's Nest Glen", he dispensed hospitality in the grand old southern style to those of reputation and to the stranger who happened along. Active in local, state and national politics between 1851 and 1868, Fairfax was elected a Marin County Supervisor in 1865 and held that office for two years.
A man of honor, fiercely patriotic, never coveting his noble title, Charles Fairfax died in 1869 after traveling east as a delegate to the National Democratic Convention, at the home of his mother. After his death, his widow sold the property to Mary Owens and moved to Fort Ross.
