Rappahannock County is a county located in the northern Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia, US, adjacent to Shenandoah National Park. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 7,348. Its county seat is Washington. The name "Rappahannock" comes from the Algonquian word lappihanne, meaning "river of quick, rising water" or "where the tide ebbs and flows." The county is included in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Falmouth is a census-designated place (CDP) in Stafford County, Virginia, United States. Situated on the north bank of the Rappahannock River at the falls, the community is north of and opposite the city of Fredericksburg. Recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place (CDP), Falmouth's population was 4,274 as of the 2010 census.
The Northern Neck is the northernmost of three peninsulas on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Potomac River forms the northern boundary of the peninsula; the Rappahannock River demarcates it on the south. The land between these rivers was formed into Northumberland County in 1648, prior to the creation of Westmoreland County and Lancaster County. The Northern Neck encompasses the following Virginia counties: Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond, King George and Westmoreland; it had a total population of 50,158 as of the 2020 census.
The Allegheny Mountain Range, informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less developed eras. The Allegheny Mountains have a northeast–southwest orientation, running for about 300 miles (480 km) from north-central Pennsylvania, southward through western Maryland and eastern West Virginia.
Peter Jefferson was a planter, cartographer and politician in colonial Virginia best known for being the father of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The "Fry-Jefferson Map", created by Peter in collaboration with Joshua Fry in 1757, accurately charted the Allegheny Mountains for the first time and showed the route of "The Great Road from the Yadkin River through Virginia to Philadelphia distant 455 Miles"—what would later come to be known as the Great Wagon Road.
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, was a Scottish peer. He was the son of Thomas Fairfax, 5th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, and Catherine Colepeper, daughter of Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper.
John Savage was an 18th-century surveyor of colonial Virginia. He surveyed as part of a 1736 expedition to settle a boundary dispute between Lord Fairfax and the English Privy Council concerning the extent of the vast Northern Neck land grant.
Fairfax Stone Historical Monument State Park is a West Virginia state park commemorating the Fairfax Stone, a surveyor's marker and boundary stone at the source of the North Branch of the Potomac River. The original stone was placed on October 23, 1746 to settle a boundary dispute between Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron and the English Privy Council concerning the Northern Neck of Virginia. It determined the proprietorship and boundaries of a large tract of mostly unsurveyed land in the English colonies of Maryland and Virginia.
Thomas Lewis was an Irish-American surveyor, lawyer, politician and pioneer of early western Virginia. He was among the signers of the Fairfax Resolves, represented Augusta County at four of the five Virginia Revolutionary Conventions and the first session of the Virginia House of Delegates during the American War for Independence, and after the conflict, represented newly established Rockingham County at the Virginia Ratification Convention, as well as contributed to the settlement of an area that long after his death become part of West Virginia.
Sperryville is a census-designated place (CDP) located in the western section of Rappahannock County, Virginia, United States, near Shenandoah National Park. It consists of a village with two main streets along the two branches of the Thornton River, together with surrounding pasture- and farmland. The population as of the 2010 Census was 342.
Thomas Bryan Martin (1731–1798) was an 18th-century English American land agent, justice, legislator, and planter in the colony of Virginia and in present-day West Virginia. Martin was the land agent of the Northern Neck Proprietary for his uncle Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693–1781) and served two terms in the House of Burgesses.
The Northern Neck Proprietary – also called the Northern Neck land grant, Fairfax Proprietary, or Fairfax Grant – was a land grant first contrived by the exiled English King Charles II in 1649 and encompassing all the lands bounded by the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers in colonial Virginia. This constituted up to 5,000,000 acres (20,000 km2) of Virginia's Northern Neck and a vast area northwest of it.
Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee, 11 U.S. 603 (1813), was a United States Supreme Court case arising out of the acquisition of lands originally granted by the British King Charles II in 1649 to Lord Fairfax in the Northern Neck and westward.
William Fairfax (1691–1757) was a political appointee of the British Crown in several colonies as well as a planter and politician in the Colony of Virginia. Fairfax served as Collector of Customs in Barbados, Chief Justice and governor of the Bahamas; and Customs agent in Marblehead, Massachusetts before being reassigned to the Virginia colony. In the Virginia Colony, Fairfax acted as a land agent for his cousin's vast holdings in the colony's northeast corner, known as the Northern Neck Proprietary. Also a tobacco planter himself, Fairfax was elected to the House of Burgesses representing King William County within the proprietary, which he helped split so that Fairfax County was created. Appointed to the Governor's Council, he rose to become its president. Fairfax also commissioned the construction of his plantation called Belvoir in what became Fairfax County to honor his family.
Belvoir was the plantation and estate of colonial Virginia's prominent William Fairfax family. Operated with the forced labor of enslaved people, it sat on the west bank of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, at the present site of Fort Belvoir. The main house — called Belvoir Manor or Belvoir Mansion — burned in 1783 and was destroyed during the War of 1812. The site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973 as "Belvoir Mansion Ruins and the Fairfax Grave."
Wappocomo is a late 18th-century Georgian mansion and farm overlooking the South Branch Potomac River north of Romney, Hampshire County, West Virginia, USA. It is located along Cumberland Road and the South Branch Valley Railroad.
Maryland v. West Virginia, 217 U.S. 1 (1910), is a 9-to-0 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the boundary between the American states of Maryland and West Virginia is the south bank of the North Branch Potomac River. The decision also affirmed criteria for adjudicating boundary disputes between states, which said that decisions should be based on the specific facts of the case, applying the principles of law and equity in such a way that least disturbs private rights and title to land.
Valley View is a mid-19th-century Greek Revival residence and farm overlooking the South Branch Potomac River northwest of Romney, West Virginia. The house is atop a promontory where Depot Valley joins the South Branch Potomac River valley.
Valley was a populated place and post office on the South Branch line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It was centered near the intersection of West Sioux Lane and Depot Valley Road, now located within the present-day corporate boundaries of Romney. Valley developed in 1884 following the completion of the South Branch line when the rail line's original southern terminus and corresponding Romney Depot were built there. The United States Post Office Department established a post office at Valley on May 19, 1928, remaining in operation until its disestablishment on June 15, 1937. Following the closure of Valley's post office, its mail was routed through the post office in Romney.
William Beverley (1696–1756) was an 18th-century legislator, civil servant, planter and landowner in the Colony of Virginia. Born in Virginia, Beverley—the son of planter and historian Robert Beverley, Jr. and his wife, Ursula Byrd Beverley (1681–1698)—was the scion of two prominent Virginia families. He was the nephew of Peter Beverley (1668–1728), Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and the grandson of wealthy Virginia planter William Byrd I (1652–1704) of Westover Plantation. Beverley's mother died shortly before her 17th birthday, and he was sent to England.
