Mr. Walsh, J.E.B. Stuart, and Me: An Occoquan Blog

Mr. Walsh walked surprisingly fast for such an old man.  For a while he rode a bike, but he wrecked it.  After pleading with my Mom to take him to the store to return it, she did.  He explained to the manager that God did not want him to ride a bike, and the results spoke for themselves.  His money was returned.  In those days, the Town of Occoquan harbored a cast of characters, each with their own quirks.  Standing above them all was Mr. Walsh.

He looked like a character in a German Expressionist painting, perhaps an Earnst Barlack.  He stepped off the canvas looking twisted, stooped, permanently dark.  His home, a listing and angular shack of pallet boards and tar paper, stood sentry at the corner of what is now Old Bridge Road and Tanyard Hill Road, right at the entrance to the Town of Occoquan.  In those days, the late 60s,  Thousand Oaks and Lake Ridge existed largely in the minds of developers and bankers.  Traffic eased down Tanyard Hill, recognizing its danger, and not being in any particular hurry.  The Occoquan they found echoed the towns of an earlier time and place.  There was Lynn’s Store, where you could buy yellow crickets, silver minnows, a 12 gauge shot gun, a dipping net, or a cold Coca Cola with crackers and cheese cut from an enormous wheel of cheddar near the front door.  You could get aspirin at the drug store, a loaf of bread at the Harris General Store, or a casket at Hall’s Funeral Parlor.  My Dad liked to say that you could get born, live and die in Occoquan, and never need go to Woodbridge.  It certainly worked that way for Mr. Walsh.

Mr. Walsh possessed a number of odd things for a man who lived in a shack and often came to us and other neighbors for food.  A mule and a pony topped the list.  Occasionally, Mr. Walsh rode the mule.  He also believed that Virginia’s free-range laws applied to his stock, and thus, in my childhood it was not uncommon to find the pony, named Robert E. Lee, wandering around, in his un-gelded magnificence, looking for our neighbor’s mare.   The mule was good natured, and later in my life, after studying and becoming a professional historian, I realized that Mr. Walsh often rode the mule with a U.S. Cavalry saddle.  An actual U.S. McClellan saddle.  Occoquan always had too few children, but what few could be found, Mr. Walsh would find, and tell stories about how he had ridden with J.E.B. Stuart during the War Between the States.  He took us through the brush and the woods to show us rifle pits and gun emplacements.  We did find a cannon ball once, a 12 pounder for a Napoleon.  Looking back on it now, it seems crazy.  All those children with a crazy old man, a mule, and J.E.B Stuart? 

I suppose all of this is on my mind for two reason.  First, Mr. Walsh’s shack was near the proposed location of the new Oaks III development.  This project will impact the town and we are all watching it closely.  When I attended the PWC Planning Commission hearing on the project, one of the commissioners commented that the land had never been used for anything.  I, of course, knew differently.  I knew that one of Stuart’s troopers had carved out a life in a confusing 20th century, and made Occoquan magic for children, and even adults.  I remember him calling my folks, going up to his place to find his mule dying in the stream, Mr. Walsh cradling the mule’s head as the December afternoon of grey turned words into mist, and the water flowed over man and beast equally.  To this day, Mr. Walsh stories are told in my parent’s home, and my brothers and sister keep his memory alive by talking about him.  Soon his former home will be transformed into just another ugly office building and parking lot.    I wish a  more fitting monument could be found; a way to commemorate a man who made the Town of Occoquan more interesting and colorful and harmed no one in the process. 

Secondly, Memorial Day is upon us, and many will pay respects to fallen heroes, friends and loved ones who served this county.  For me, I wonder about those heros who came home, yet never found peace, never found contentment, in essence, lost it all.  Mr. Walsh’s saddle was a U.S. Army M1904 Contract Model; you could tell because it had brass rivets and brass stirrup loops.  Mr. Walsh served overseas in WWI.  He was a doughboy calvary-man.  My Dad believed that he had been gassed, and suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, something not much understood at the time.  Truth is, occasionally, not more interesting than fiction, but far more complex.  The story of Mr. Walsh is a cautionary tale.  Next time you drive down Tanyard Hill Road, slow down, if not because it is safer and legal, do so because you want to pay respects to Mr. Walsh and his life.  In doing so, you will be honoring all of the others like Mr. Walsh.  Mr. Walsh and his friend Ralph Ward died one winter when the shack on the hill caught fire.  Gone now, but not forgotten. 

If the past is prologue, then Occoquan needs to have its voice heard again, and that is what I will try to do.  This blog will remember and look forward.  The culture, history, and politics of the area will be our province, but hopefully, not our only travels.  We will look to the future by knowing that the past is never far behind.