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I do not understand some things in northern Virginia

Sirius Glass

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I do not understand some things in northern Virginia.


  1. In Sterling Virgina there is an area called "Dulles Crossing". George Washington crossed the Delaware river, which river did John Foster Dulles cross? Did he cross some people? Did he cross himself? No one there knows.
  2. There are several Ox roads: Old Ox road, Ox road, and West Ox road and none of them go anywhere near each other. I have not seen any oxen and no one else has either. There are not a New Ox road, North Ox road, South Ox road nor an East Ox road.

Please advise.
 
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the secretary of state ?
many things are named after him, schools, airports &c ...

regarding the ox, maybe at one time there were ox there,
developers love to name things after things they destroyed and no longer exist ...
near me there is a colony of mCmansions in an area called "the woods" ..
no woods there anymore after they clear cut trees to grow a crop of homes ..
( crop rotation?)
my poor guess is either there were ox there, or it is someone's last name ..
 
jnanian said:
the secretary of state ?
many things are named after him, schools, airports &c ...
Click to expand...

Yes the President Eisenhower's Secretary i=of State, but what or whom did he cross?
 
Considering that area was once very rural, I'd guess there were oxen, at one time.
As for Dulles Crossing, it may be that there was once a dirt, rural intersection there.
Both explanations just guesses, though...
 
Oxford = a shallow/narrow spot in a river where oxen can cross (ford)
 
What makes you sure it is John Foster Dulles? Could it be someone else called Dulles who lived nearby. The key might be when the crossing was named. If it has had its present name for say 80 or more years then it might well be someone else called Dulles

pentaxuser
 
There is also an oxbow. Is this a ribbon to tie around some part of an ox?

And of course there is Dulles airport, but Dulles was not a pilot.

PE
 
frank said:
Oxford = a shallow/narrow spot in a river where oxen can cross (ford)
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For towns and cities with historical roots, a reasonable explanation. Doesn't hold true for may places in America (or Australia) where settlers named their new homesteads after their towns of origin.

e.g. The town of Great Yarmouth, England - The mouth of the river Yare.
Yarmouth, Iowa - Not even large enough to warrant being called a one horse town, and certainly no where near any rivers.
 
I live in Oxbridge. Used to be Oxford, but then they built a bridge.
 
ferget

Oh, how soon we forget. A very young Carol Burnett had a smash hit with a song called "I Fell in Love With John Foster Dulles." Dulles, secretary of state, was an older fellow and looked like a statesman should, but he was no Tyrone Power or Robert Redford in the "handsome" department. He didn't leave his wife for Carol so you could say he crossed her.
PS -- I once belonged to the Blue Lake Yacht Club in the town of Blue Lake near Eureka, CA. There has not been a lake in Blue Lake for 100 years.
I, personally, have always been confused by the circles of confusion in photographic theory. Can you help me?
 

I'm a little fuzzy on that myself.



I have a theory about Blue Lake: One evening a flock of ducks settled on the lake. Overnight it got so cold the lake froze solid. In the morning, the flock flew off, taking the lake with it.
 
I'm even more confused... Virginia... who was she?
 

Dulles Airport was named after John Foster Dulles by an act of Congress. The Dulles name is attached to many things in the immediate area.
 
Photo Engineer said:
What is a loud oun?

PE
Click to expand...

loud oun aka loud Juan is not related to Quiet One aka Quiet Juan. Neither of Juan crossed Any Juan. That should make Every Juan a Happy Juan.
 
I'm out here in Chantilly (just north of 66), so named after a plantation from the early 1800's that, of course, lifted the name from Chantilly in France. Who needs imagination? I've driven on or over many of the name-variant Ox Roads out here, and I've always been very amused at how the road emerges then submerges again, only to pop up elsewhere. I'd lay dollars to donuts that long ago it was a "major" road that came into Washington and northern Virginia (not Northern Virginia as I've seen elsewhere, though some people think it to be so!) from West Virginia and points west. Given the speed with which the areas in Fairfax and Loudoun counties are disappearing, I'm tickled that the past manages to occasionally crop up and remind us that this used to be a much more rural area.
 
You think you have lproblems - I live in British Columbia, which has nothing to do with Columbia and hasn't been very British for a long time.
 
And then there was Allan Dulles, of CIA fame ... or infamy if you like Monty Python-esque stories. He may have been closer to Twilight Zone.

it may, however, explain why the name Dulles Crossing is unexplained.
 
MattKing said:
You think you have lproblems - I live in British Columbia, which has nothing to do with Columbia and hasn't been very British for a long time.
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Who is on your currency? The Queen or the PM of Canada?

British? Hmmm.

But then we have New York compared to Old York. You have Stratford (on Avon).

PE
 
Sirius Glass said:
There are several Ox roads: Old Ox road, Ox road, and West Ox road and none of them go anywhere near each other. I have not seen any oxen and no one else has either. There are not a New Ox road, North Ox road, South Ox road nor an East Ox road.
Click to expand...


Yes, it does not make sense to speak of a Old Ox Road if there is no New Ox Road. Or was, as the latter may have vanished again...

The existince of a West Ox Road does not imply the existence of a East Ox Road. There may have been a Ox Road to which a West Ox Road may have been added. There would have been no reason to change the name of the former.
 
Sirius Glass said:
loud oun aka loud Juan is not related to Quiet One aka Quiet Juan. Neither of Juan crossed Any Juan. That should make Every Juan a Happy Juan.
Click to expand...
Did you hear that from Obi Juan?
 
AgX said:
Yes, it does not make sense to speak of a Old Ox Road if there is no New Ox Road. Or was, as the latter may have vanished again...
Click to expand...
Maybe it was named after an old ox?

The existince of a West Ox Road does not imply the existence of a East Ox Road. There may have been a Ox Road to which a West Ox Road may have been added. There would have been no reason to change the name of the former.
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Maybe there was an ox, and another ox to the west of it?
Maybe to the east there was another, but it was named Ollie Oxen, and it got free?
 
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megzdad81 said:
And then there was Allan Dulles, of CIA fame ... or infamy if you like Monty Python-esque stories. He may have been closer to Twilight Zone.

it may, however, explain why the name Dulles Crossing is unexplained.
Click to expand...

Maybe John Foster was walking along and crossed paths with Allen... they were brothers, you know. Or maybe one or both crossed paths with their sister, Eleanor. Or maybe Eleanor and one of the brothers crossed paths with the other brother. OR, maybe they all three used the same path and other people saw them at the same place so often they started calling it Dulles Crossing... yeah, I bet that's it!
 
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