by Rob Hedelt
When visitors arrive Saturday, October 3, at Lawson Bay Farm in White Stone for Boots and Barbecue, the Northern Neck Land Conservancy’s annual celebration of land conservation efforts in the region, the picturesque property on the Rappahannock River will have many stories to tell.
One of the most recent is the story of how the current owners, the Robison family, placed a conservation easement on the 75-acre farm to help ensure that it will never be developed—that its open, natural spaces will still be here for future generations.
Another story dates back to the 1890s and the early 1900s, when a Black entrepreneur, Hansford C. Bayton, became the respected captain and owner of five steamboats that delivered mail and passengers from the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula to Baltimore, Norfolk and Washington.
Although Rowland Lawson once owned 900 acres stretching from Cherry Creek out onto Mosquito Point, over the years parcels were divided for his descendants and transferred to other owners. Along the way, in 1901, Bayton purchased 169 acres, the house and surrounding land now known as Lawson Bay Farm. The acquisition was a groundbreaking act for a man of color in….
