The Lost Village of Ryan

Near the end of the old road—where it intersects present-day Waxpool, Shellhorn, Ashburn roads—was the once-thriving hamlet of Ryan.

The community was originally known as “Farmwell,” the name of the nearby plantation owned by George Lee, who in 1849 deeded four acres for a church and schoolhouse, to be built near the intersection of Ashburn and Shellhorn roads.

According to Loudoun historian Eugene M. Scheel in his book, “Eastern Loudoun: Goin’ Down the Country,” the village became known as “Old Farmwell” in 1860, after it was bypassed by the Loudoun, Alexandria and Hampshire Railroad in favor of a new “Farmwell,” which later became the village of Ashburn. To avoid confusion, Old Farmwell was later known as “Five Corners,” which accurately reflected its geographic location.

 

Rural Commercial Center

Five Corners’ first store was opened by Fran Ellmore in the 1880s. When the post office was established there in 1889, the name “Ryan” was adopted, in honor of John F. Ryan, who served in the Virginia House of Delegates for many years, and was the Speaker of the House from 1894-1904.

Subsequent owner/operators of the Ellmore Store and the associated post office included Jefferson D. Lambert, who became postmaster in 1893; Ed Myers, who ran the store from 1912 to 1916; and Charles Hurst, who was the postmaster from 1914 to 1917.

Sometime in the 1890s, Dennis Higgins built a second Ellmore’s Store across the intersection on a lot bordered by Ryan and Shellhorn roads. John S. Lyons and Will Myers operated this business into the early 1900s; then Charles Hurst took it over and ran the store until it closed in 1916. George Oden Powell and his wife reopened the store in 1917, with Maud May Powell serving as postmistress until the store closed in 1930.

The post office was moved back to the first Ellmore Store, with Marvin W. Shyrock serving as Ryan’s postmaster until the mails stopped in 1946. After that, there was a succession of storekeepers in the building, including George Redmon and his son Franklin, who had their business there from the mid-1950s until the store closed for good about 1962. It was demolished in the 1980s.

George Fouche and his sons ran a wheelwright and tin shop on Shellhorn Road behind Ellmore’s Store, where they manufactured wheels, stoves and other metal products. Across the street from their shop was a steam-powered flour and grain mill operated by George Oden Powell and George W. Bradshaw.

According to Scheel, “The building had been a creamery in the 1880s, and was converted to a mill in the early 1890s. About 1905, a one-cylinder Geyser gasoline engine replaced the mill’s steam power, and a few years later, the manufactory stopped grinding flour. It closed in the 1930s, and burned in 1959.”

Next to the mill was George Horsman’s blacksmith shop, which he ran from the early 1890s until about 1910. Scheel notes that while Horsman owned the shop, he was mainly interested in farming and was rarely there, and men who worked for him did the blacksmithing. The business closed in the late 1920s.

 

The Ryan Band

Scheel recalls that Ryan’s claim to fame was the 15-member Ryan Band, organized by Sidney Fouche in 1895. Many of Ryan’s prominent citizens, or their sons and nephews, were involved.

In its first year, the band was invited to play at the unveiling of the monument to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, and was “Chosen from all of the bands present to serenade Mrs. Davis,” wrote Scheel. “And when Mrs. Davis said, ‘Give us “Going Back to Dixie,’” the Ryan Band did just that.”

For the next decade, the band played on, using music bought from Sears & Roebuck and practicing in Fouche’s wheelwright shop. Sometimes, the going rate was $3 per musician per night, which Scheel describes as “plumber’s wages” back then.

The band “broke up after less than 10 years after it achieved fame,” wrote Scheel. “And someone in Herndon talked them out of their instruments.” By 1920, the Fouches went their separate ways, and the wheelwright shop was closed. However, their old board-and-batten building lasted until the early 21st century.

 

Marking Years of Change

Master carpenter John Shyrock built the second Ryan Methodist Church just southeast of the original church in 1877. It was used by the Methodists until replaced by a smaller brick church, erected on the same site in 1953.

 Heritage Baptist Church was established in the old Methodist church in 1992, but within a few years had outgrown the building, which could accommodate only about 90 worshippers. In 2002, a much large, modern sanctuary with a capacity for 200 was built next to the 1953 structure, which is now used as a chapel.

Shyrock built Ryan’s second school in 1892. It was a two-room structure, located northeast of the first school, with the old cemetery on two sides. “During recess, children used to play among old gravestones and grave depressions that surrounded the building,” noted Scheel. The school closed in 1934, and no trace of it—or the graveyard—can be seen among the trees and scrub bushes that now cover the dense, undeveloped tract.

With the closing of the old Darnes Road in the late 1930s, the “Five Forks” were reduced to “four,” and today, Ryan Road simply ends at Ashburn Village Boulevard, with no real destination. As the old stores, trade shops and the mill were closed and eventually demolished, the village of Ryan—which for nearly 100 years served Loudoun’s agricultural economy—has virtually disappeared.

But the church near the crossroads is growing, due in part to the new families moving into Broadlands and nearby; and the commercial properties recently built on the site of the old Ellmore Store are taking advantage of the strategic location that was once Ryan, and the large traffic count that passes by every day on Waxpool Road.