Between the Hills | |
---|---|
Floor elevation | 500 ft (150 m) |
Length | 11 miles (18 km)North-South |
Width | 2 miles (3.2 km) |
Geography | |
Location | Loudoun County, Virginia |
Population centers | Neersville |
Borders on | Short Hill Mountain (east) Blue Ridge Mountain (west) Potomac River (north) South Fork Catoctin Creek (south) |
Coordinates | 39°15′N77°44′W / 39.250°N 77.733°W |
Topo map | USGS, Round Hill |
Traversed by | Virginia Route 9 |
Between the Hills is a small valley in northwest Loudoun County, Virginia, distinct from, but associated with, the greater Loudoun Valley.
The Between the Hills valley encompasses the area of Loudoun that lies west of Short Hill Mountain and east of the Blue Ridge Mountain. The area includes the communities of Neersville and Loudoun Heights.
Between the Hills can be divided into two sections; the upper and lower valley. The upper valley encompasses the area north of the Hillsboro Gap in the Short Hill, while the lower valley encompasses the area south of the gap. The valley ranges from 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide at its largest, just south of the Hillsboro gap to 1.4 miles (2.3 km) wide at its smallest, east of Purcell Knob in the upper valley and is approximately 11 miles (18 km) long.
The main waterways of Between the Hills are the North Fork of Catoctin Creek, which drains the lower valley before flowing through the Hillsboro gap into the Catoctin Valley, and Piney Run, which drains the upper valley and flows north through the valley directly into the Potomac River.
Across the Potomac River, the valley continues as Pleasant Valley in Maryland.
State Route 671, Harpers Ferry Road, is the main road in the valley, running north–south through the upper valley from its southern terminus at Virginia State Route 9, Charles Town Pike, west of Hillsboro, to its northern terminus at U.S. Route 340, south of the Sandy Hook bridge over the Potomac River and east of Harpers Ferry. State Route 719, Stony Point-Woodgrove road runs north–south through the lower valley from Hillsboro to Woodgrove. The Charlestown pike bisects the valley, running southeast–northwest from the Hillsboro Gap to Keyes Gap in the Blue Ridge.
The Between the Hills Valley was formed by action along the Short Hill fault during the early Paleozoic era, which resulted in separation of the underlying rocks of the Blue Ridge and Short Hill mountains, which were deposited during the Catoctin Formation of the late Proterozoic period and uplifted during the Grenville Orogeny. Reactivation of the fault during the Alleghenian Orogeny caused further separation of underlying rock deposited during the middle and late Paleozoic era. [1]
During the American Civil War, a Between the Hills resident, John Mobberly, gained notoriety as a Confederate guerrilla. During the last two years of the war, he successfully disputed control of the area through his daring exploits, until his assassination outside of Neersville in April 1865. In late November-early December 1864 much of the Between the Hills valley was put to the torch by Union cavalry during The Burning Raid, including Potts Mill, the ruins of which can be seen from off Stony Point Road. Confederate partisan John Mosby and his Rangers suffered their first defeat in the valley and along the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge in the Battle of Loudoun Heights, fought on January 1, 1864.
Hillsboro is a rural town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population was 80 at the 2010 census and an estimated 169 as of 2019.
Round Hill is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. Its population was 539 at the 2010 census and an estimated 656 in 2019. The town is located at the crossroads of Virginia Routes 7 and 719, approximately 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Washington, D.C. The town's name refers a hill two miles northeast of a 910-foot (280 m) hill used during the American Civil War as a signal post by both Confederate and Union troops. House of Round Hill was built in 2004. Patsy Cline went to Round Hill Elementary School.
The Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the Ridge and Valley Province or the Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands division. The physiographic province is divided into three sections: the Hudson Valley, the Central, and the Tennessee.
Catoctin Mountain, along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains, forms the easternmost mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in turn a part of the Appalachian Mountains range. The ridge runs northeast–southwest for about 50 miles (80 km) departing from South Mountain near Emmitsburg, Maryland, and running south past Leesburg, Virginia, where it disappears into the Piedmont in a series of low-lying hills near New Baltimore, Virginia. The ridge forms the eastern rampart of the Loudoun and Middletown valleys.
The Bull Run Mountains are a mountain range of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia in the United States. Located approximately 20 miles (32 km) east of the main chain, across the Loudoun Valley. The Bull Run Mountains, together with Catoctin Mountain in Virginia and Maryland, make up the easternmost front of the Blue Ridge.
Rockfish Gap is a wind gap located in the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlottesville and Waynesboro, Virginia, United States, through Afton Mountain, which is frequently used to refer to the gap.
Catoctin Creek is a 14.1-mile-long (22.7 km) tributary of the Potomac River in Loudoun County, Virginia, with a watershed of 59,000 acres (240 km2). Agricultural lands make up 67 percent and forests 30 percent of Catoctin Creek's watershed. It is the main drainage system for the northern Loudoun Valley, including all of the Catoctin Valley.
Blue Ridge Mountain, also known as Blue Mountain, is the colloquial name of the westernmost ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The Appalachian Trail traverses the entire length of the mountain along its western slope and crest.
The Loudoun Valley is a small, but historically significant valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains located in Loudoun County in Northern Virginia in the United States.
Goose Creek is a 53.9-mile-long (86.7 km) tributary of the Potomac River in Fauquier and Loudoun counties in northern Virginia. It comprises the principal drainage system for the Loudoun Valley.
Short Hill Mountain is a mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest Loudoun County, Virginia.
Loudoun County, Virginia, was destined to be an area of significant military activity during the American Civil War. Located on Virginia's northern frontier, the Potomac River, Loudoun County became a borderland after Virginia's secession from the Union in early 1861. Loudoun County's numerous Potomac bridges, ferries and fords made it an ideal location for the Union and Confederate armies to cross into and out of Virginia. Likewise, the county's several gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains that connected the Piedmont to the Shenandoah Valley and Winchester were of considerable strategic importance. The opposing armies would traverse the county several times throughout the war leading to several small battles, most notably the Battle of Ball's Bluff.
South Mountain is the northern extension of the Blue Ridge Mountain range in Maryland and Pennsylvania. From the Potomac River near Knoxville, Maryland in the south to Dillsburg, Pennsylvania in York County, Pennsylvania in the north, the 70-mile-long (110 km) range separates the Hagerstown and Cumberland valleys from the Piedmont regions of the two states.
Virginia State Route 9 is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of Virginia. Known as Charles Town Pike, the state highway runs 13.08 miles (21.05 km) from the West Virginia state line near Mechanicsville, where the highway continues west as West Virginia Route 9, east to SR 7 and SR 7 Business in Paeonian Springs. SR 9 is the main east–west highway of northwestern Loudoun County, connecting Leesburg with Hillsboro and the West Virginia cities of Charles Town and Martinsburg. As a result, the state highway and its West Virginia continuation are a major, overburdened commuter route between the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and Washington, D.C.
The Loudoun Branch of the Manassas Gap Railroad was a planned branch extension of the Manassas Gap Railroad that was to connect the Orange and Alexandria Railroad (O&A) to Harpers Ferry and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
Heaton's Crossroads, also known as the Purcellville Wagon Raid, was an American Civil War skirmish that took place between Federal cavalry under Brig. Gen. Alfred N. Duffié and Confederate infantry under Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge on July 16, 1864, near present-day Purcellville, Virginia in Loudoun County as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. The action was tactically inconclusive.
The Burning Raid was a Union raid conducted in the Loudoun Valley of Loudoun and Fauquier counties in Virginia in 1864 during the American Civil War. It was aimed at destroying the forage on which Confederate partisans operating in the area, specifically Mosby's Rangers, subsisted as well as at breaking the will of the citizens of the area for supporting the partisans.
Hillsboro Gap, also known as the Gap in the Short Hill is a water gap in the Short Hill Mountain formed by the North Fork of the Catoctin Creek in Loudoun County, Virginia. The gap derives its name from the town of Hillsboro, which is nestled in the gap. Virginia State Route 9 passes through the gap in the town.
The Catoctin Valley is a small valley, geographically and culturally associated with the larger Loudoun Valley in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Scheel, Eugene M. Loudoun Discovered: Communities, Corners and Crossroads, Vol V. Waterford, The German Settlement and Between the Hills. The Friends of the Thomas Balch Library; Leesburg, Virginia 2002.