*House originally built by Joseph E. Supplee*

Originally published in the August 2025 edition of Greet Del Ray.

One of Del Ray’s earliest residents was Joseph Edward Supplee, the son of an Irish immigrant who worked on the railroads in Martinsberg, WV. Supplee and his wife Mildred moved to Northern Virginia and built their home on the southwest corner of Howell and LaGrande Avenues in 1895.

The Supplees had a son when they moved to Del Ray, but the family grew while they were there. Two more sons and a daughter were born between 1896 and 1906. The suburb of Del Ray proved to be an ideal location to raise their four children.

Supplee was active in politics from an early age and was elected Chairman of the Democratic Committee for Jefferson District (southern Arlington) in 1896 at 27 years old. He served on the School Board representing his district in 1899. By 1905, he was serving as Justice of the Peace for his district. When the citizens gathered to consider improvements to the county’s government in 1907, Supplee served on the subcommittee organized to draft the measures.

When the Town of Potomac was formed in March 1908, Supplee was a natural selection to be the interim mayor to manage the new Town until the first elections were held on 1 September 1908. In that role, he oversaw the creation of the Town’s government and the first elections.

Despite his pivotal role in the creation of the Town of Potomac, Supplee did not remain there much longer. A printer by trade, he began working as a linotype operator at the Washington Evening Star newspaper. He moved his family to Washington DC around 1912. Although he left over 100 years ago, the home he built remains.