Linville, Virginia

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Linville
Linville CDP in Rockingham County, VA.svg
Location of the Linville CDP within the Rockingham County
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Linville
Location in Virginia
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Linville
Linville (the United States)
Coordinates: 38°31′15″N78°50′15″W / 38.52083°N 78.83750°W / 38.52083; -78.83750 Coordinates: 38°31′15″N78°50′15″W / 38.52083°N 78.83750°W / 38.52083; -78.83750
CountryFlag of the United States.svg  United States
State Virginia
County Rockingham County
Population
 (1870)
  Total3,547
FIPS code 51-45960

Linville is a Census-designated place located in Rockingham County, in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is located 6 miles north of Harrisonburg, Virginia. [1] [2] It is for the first time listed as CDP for the United States Census 2020. It contains the Linville United Church of Christ.

History

Linville Creek was one of the most important centers of Colonial Virginia during the eighteenth century. Its name is derived from William Linvell (various spellings: Linvel, Linwell), who was granted 15,000 acres in the area prior to 1739. Located along the Great Wagon Road in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Linville quickly became a civilized outpost on the frontier. Its earliest settlers were English Quakers, and few Scotch-Irish who were later joined by Swiss Germans many of whom moved south from Pennsylvania. [3]

Homestead in Linville in which Thomas Lincoln, father of President Abraham Lincoln, was born in 1778. Lincoln Homestead 03 2014-09-13.jpg
Homestead in Linville in which Thomas Lincoln, father of President Abraham Lincoln, was born in 1778.

Around 1750 Daniel Boone’s father Squire Boone moved his family from Oley, Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Boone family farmed in the Linville Creek area for several years in the 1750s before moving on to North Carolina. On August 14, 1756, Daniel Boone married Rebecca Ann Bryan, daughter of Morgan Bryan of Linville Creek, whom he met while living in the Linville area. [4] Boone’s wife and children stayed in the Linville area while he explored the wilderness west of the Allegheny Mountains. [5]

President Abraham Lincoln's great-grandparents, "Virginia John" and Rebecca Flowers Lincoln also moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia in 1768 and settled on a 600-acre tract of land along Linville Creek. The President's father, Thomas Lincoln, was born on this property in 1778 before his family moved west to what is now Kentucky, which was then part of Virginia but across the mountains from the settled areas. The two-story brick home on the property known as the Lincoln Homestead and Cemetery was built circa 1800 by the President's great-uncle Jacob Lincoln. The property, a registered Virginia Historic Landmark, includes a family cemetery where five generations of Lincolns are buried along with two slaves, identified as Queenie and Uncle Ned. [6]

During the antebellum period, Linville was an important stop on the underground railroad due to the large number of Anabaptists in the area who were opposed to slavery and helped runaway slaves find safe passage out of Rockingham through Brock's Gap to Pendleton for a walk through Franklin and on to Petersburg in what is now West Virginia where they could find rail passage to the north. [3]

Linville was affected by the major local floods of 1870. [1] Its population at the time was 3547, with 17 "productive industries" in the town. [1]

Mannheim and the George Chrisman House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [7]

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Rebecca Ann Bryan Boone was an American pioneer and the wife of famed frontiersman Daniel Boone. No contemporary portrait of her exists, but people who knew her said that when she met her future husband she was nearly as tall as he and very attractive with black hair and dark eyes.

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George Bowman was an 18th-century American pioneer, landowner and a prominent Indian fighter in the early history of the Virginia Colony. He, along with his father-in-law Jost Hite, was one of the first to explore and settle Shenandoah Valley. His estate, on which Fort Bowman was founded, was one of the earliest homes to be built in Shenandoah Valley and is the site of present-day Strasburg, Virginia.

Colonel Abraham Bowman was an 18th-century American frontiersman and American Revolutionary War military officer. Bowman served as an officer and later commanded the 8th Virginia Regiment popularly known as the "German Regiment".

Mary Ada Lincoln Crume, was born in Linville Creek, Rockingham County, Virginia and is buried in the cemetery at Crume Valley, Breckinridge County, Kentucky. She was the aunt of the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln highlighted his aunt in an autobiographical sketch written for his political campaign.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mannheim (Linville, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Mannheim, also known as Koffman House, Kauffman House, and Coffman House, is a historic home located near Linville, Rockingham County, Virginia. It was constructed circa 1788 by David Coffman, a descendant of one of the first German settlers in the Shenandoah Valley. David Coffman named his masterpiece after the German city from which the Coffmans originated. Mannheim is a two-story, three bay, stone Colonial style dwelling. It has a steep side gable roof with overhanging eaves and a central chimney. A two-story, Greek Revival style wood-frame ell with double porches was added to the rear of the dwelling about 1855. A front porch also added in the 19th century has since been removed. Also on the property are the contributing two brick slave quarters, a log smokehouse, an office, a chicken shed, and the ruins of a stone spring house. The house is representative of vernacular German architecture of the mid-to-late 18th century, as constructed in America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shenandoah Germans</span>

The Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia and parts of West Virginia is home to a long-established German-American community dating back to the 17th century. The earliest German settlers to Shenandoah, sometimes known as the Shenandoah Deitsch or the Valley Dutch, were Pennsylvania Dutch migrants who arrived from southeastern Pennsylvania. These German settlers travelled southward along the Great Wagon Road. The Pennsylvania Dutch are the descendants of German, Swiss, and Alsatian Protestants who began settling in Pennsylvania during the 1600s. These German refugees had fled the Rhineland-Palatinate region of southwestern Germany due to religious and political persecution during repeated invasions by French troops. From the colonial period to the early 1900s, people of Germanic heritage formed the social and economic backbone of the Shenandoah Valley. The majority of German settlers in the valley belonged to Anabaptist denominations such as the Mennonites, the Dunkers, and others. Smaller numbers were German Catholics or German Jews. The earliest European settlers of the Shenandoah Valley were the Germans, who mostly settled in the northern portions of the valley, and the Scotch-Irish who mostly settled in the southern portions of the valley. The German language was commonly spoken in Shenandoah until World War I when anti-German sentiment resulted in many German-Americans abandoning their language and customs in order to assimilate into the cultural mainstream.

Daniel Bryan was an American politician, abolitionist, lawyer, poet, and postmaster who served in the Senate of Virginia from 1818 to 1820 and as postmaster of Alexandria, Virginia for more than three decades.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wayland, John Walter (1912). A history of Rockingham County, Virginia. Ruebush-Elkins Co. p. 166. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
  2. Google Maps (Map). Google.
  3. 1 2 "Linville Timeline".
  4. "Massanutten Musings: Daniel Boone: His Valley Connections". 6 July 2012.
  5. "History of County | Rockingham County, VA - Official Website".
  6. "Lincoln homestead offers look into past". The Washington Times .
  7. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.