From Gooney Manor Overlook you are looking southwest from an elevation of 1,930 ft (588 m) into Browntown Valley and the hills beyond. Gooney Manor was a part of a royal land grant to Thomas, 6th Lord of Fairfax in the 1700s. There were a few families who lived on Gooney Manor before 1750, but there is little record of exactly how many and who these people were. Heavier settlement of the Manor began in the 1770s, with people leasing land from Fairfax. In 1781 Fairfax died, but it was not until the heirs to Gooney Manor began selling the land around 1812 that people who held leases had an opportunity to become landowners themselves.