Willoughby Newton was an 18th century real estate developer who owned over 6000 acres of land, much of today’s Centreville. He sold land to entrepreneurs who opened businesses along the Mountain Road and leased land to farmers, whose tenants had to build a dwelling house, a tobacco house, and plant an orchard, with rents paid in tobacco. One such farm was leased to Thomas Brown near today’s Ellanor C. Lawrence Park. Newton also established ‘quarters’ that housed enslaved people who raised tobacco and other crops for him. Surveyors marked the boundaries of Newton’s land with carved stones, and one found in 1971 on the property of Mattie Gaskins Brown near Darkwood Drive and St. Timothy’s Lane was marked “WN 1739.” It is one of the oldest colonial relics in Fairfax County.