CONFEDERATE'S GRAVE MARKED AT "CHANTILLY"

Recently a Confederate Military marble tombstone was placed on the grave of Zachariah Sanders, who was buried in 1873 in the small Sanders' family cemetery located on Chantilly in Westmoreland county.  He enlisted in the Confederate Army on March 22, 1862 at Montross Court House; he served as Sergeant, Company A, 15th Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, under the command of Major John Critcher, this Battalion was known as the Northern Neck Rangers and fought valiantly for the Southern cause until the end of the Civil War.

Zachariah Sanders was born on March 14, 1822 in the upper Stonewall District of Richmond county, the son of Robert and Lucetta Drake Sanders; he was the grandson of a Revolutionary War Soldier, Aleksander (Aleck) Sanders of Richmond county, who in 1811 was appointed one of the Trustees of the Nomini Baptist Church to receive the Deed for one acre from Presley Neale, which was designated for the site of Pope's Creek Baptist Church when it was organized in 1812.

During the Civil War, Zachariah Sanders moved his family from Richmond county to the tract of land known as Chantilly in Westmoreland county and they lived there until after his death.  In 1870, he was elected the Assessor for Montross township and served in this office until his death, from pneumonia, on February 12, 1873; he was survived by his wife, Margaret Ann Olliffe Sanders, four sons and four daughters.  Many of the Sanders families living today in the Northern Neck are either his direct or collateral descendents and many are also living in the Washington Metropolitan area.

The property known as Chantilly was originally a part of a Land Patent, dated 1652, granted to Major John Hallowes, whose descendents in 1732 deeded this land to Col. Thomas Lee of Stratford and it became a part of the Stratford Plantation.  On January 6, 1763, Philip Ludwell Lee, eldest son of Col. Thomas Lee, deeded 500 acres of the easternmost part of the Stratford Plantation to his brother, Richard Henry Lee, who built his home there and named it Chantilly after the famous Chateau Chantilly, located about 20 miles outside of Paris.  After Richard Henry Lee's death in 1794, Chantilly came into the possession of General Henry Lee (the father of Robert E. Lee), who on June 14, 1797, sold the Chantilly tract to Josiah Watson of Fairfax county; Chantilly has never again been in the possession of the Lee family.  The present owner of Chantilly is Mrs. Virginia W. Sherman, a great-granddaughter of Zachariah Sanders, and she is a member of the Admiral Rafael Semmes Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy.

From the Northern Neck News, Warsaw, Richmond County, Virginia, June 3, 1965.