Allen Cochran of Cochran ’ s Stone Masonry & Timberframing poses for a photo in his showroom which is the old Janney Country Store in Lincoln .
office . He makes his way into the building , which doubles as a showroom for his business , Cochran ’ s Stone Masonry .
“ Hey there , Ann ,” he hollers toward the post office side of the building . Then he makes a cup of coffee and sits down at a table in the middle of the room , leaning back and crossing his arms .
“ Wanna hear somethin ’?” he asks with wide eyes . “ If you walk right out here in the middle of this road right now , and you look north , south , east and west — this little corner , as far as you can see , looks exactly as it did when I was a little kid .”
It ’ s one of his favorite things to tell his stonemason clients who make their way out from the suburbs . “ It ’ s exactly as it was 50 years ago ,” he says with a wink . “ You can ’ t say that about very many places in Loudoun County .” Foundry Road , Sands Road , and Lincoln Road form an X that marks where most of Allen ’ s life , and the lives of his parents and grandparents , has unfolded . His grandfather , George Cochran , raised three kids in the white farmhouse on the southeast corner of the X in 1938 . Allen ’ s father later moved a mere 200 feet away , to the stone house on the northwest corner , where he raised Allen and his sister , Patty . And occupying the northeast corner since 1815 is the Goose Creek Friends meetinghouse . “ I consider that my spiritual home ,” Allen adds .
It ’ s the spot three generations of Cochrans , descendants of Quakers who settled in Virginia in the 1700s , have spent Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings .
As a kid , any time not spent on this corner was spent in fields nearby . The family ’ s farming operation kept Allen busy and , for the most part , out of trouble . The Cochrans had 200 acres just of pumpkins , plus fields beyond that of strawberries , sweet corn and loads of other vegetables . The ruddy , red-headed teen hauled the produce to Cochran ’ s Vegetable Farms stand in Purcellville , now the site of a strip mall anchored by a Giant grocery store .
“ My grandfather was one of the first guys doing this local food thing . It wasn ’ t cool and hip then . Hell , we were just farmin ’.”
He didn ’ t have plans to go into the family business . A week after he graduated high school , he joined the military , which carried him all the way to Egypt and back again . When he returned , he decided to follow his dreams to become a stonemason , with the idea that hard work and care could restore old homes and barns into long-lasting treasures .
But just as he returned to that street corner in Lincoln , he eventually returned to farming .
At first , it was just about saving a few bucks . Not long after his 34 th birthday , Allen bought Stone Eden Farm — a place built by the Hatchers , another Quaker family — just a mile down Sands Road . He quickly learned that he ’ d better keep some kind of livestock on the property if he wanted the tax break that agriculture zoning promised .
“ One day I get this letter from the county saying ‘ where ’ s your livestock ? ‘ Cause you ’ re on land zoned as agriculture .’ So I went and bought 10 sheep and put them out there ,” he said , brushing his palms against one another . “ And there we go . … So I thought .”
The flock promptly died . Turns out , raising sheep isn ’ t easy . “ It ’ s as if they ’ re born looking for a place to die ,” Allen shook his
8 wander I fall • winter 2021