The History of Buckland, Virginia: An 18th- and 19th-Century Commercial, Industrial, and Battle-Stricken Community Top Left: "Buckland from Mr. Hunton's House, scene of cavalry engagement with Stuart," sketch by Alfred Waud (19 October 1863), Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Bottom Left: Buckland Historic District, aerial photo taken by the Buckland Preservation Society (2004). Buckland is a humble place by modern standards. Understanding its history, significance, potential, and purpose is more complex. 18th Century Village Buckland is a rare American example of the familiar axial English village pattern. The Main Street of the Town extends from the main house entrance gate. Both Buckland Hall and the Town of Buckland stand on the “Broad Run Tract” originally owned by the sixth Lord Fairfax, who conveyed this land to his agent, Robert (King) Carter. Carter conveyed the land to his sons and son-in-law, who in turn sold the land to Samuel Love in 1774. Love began construction of the main house, a single pile stone residence commonly attributed to architect William Buckland, though this affiliation is not documented. Samuel Love’s sons, Samuel, John, Charles, and Augustine, served as Virginia Regiment Officers during the Revolutionary War and returned to transform Buckland into a vibrant mercantile center. Beside the existing mill, and at the base of the lane leading to the main house, they built an assortment of secondary structures for production of farm goods. Soon, the distillery, stone quarry, blacksmith, tannery, stores, and a second mill called “Kinsley” built in 1794 by John and Charles, were operating and were frequented by travelers. Outside merchants arrived, leased adjoining parcels and built stores of their own. When Samuel Love the elder died in 1787, John Love inherited the main house. By the end of the eighteenth century there were additional shopkeepers, a wheelwright, cooper, apothecary, boot/shoe manufacturer, saddler, woolen factory, two taverns, and a church – the essentials of a small town. In 1797, by petition to the Virginia General Assembly, John Love laid out a grid of lots around the irregular cluster of earlier shops and outbuildings described in this document as “already built upwards of twenty good houses occupied by tradesmen and merchants.” These buildings included “considerable manufactorys of grain” and a stone distillery on lot 29. The petition further recommended “Buckland as a proper place for establishing a town and possessing singular advantages over any other situation within a considerable distance.” The petition also carefully described all of the natural amenities afforded at this site. The General Assembly established the forty-eight lott Plan of the Town on 15 January 1798. Cultural landscape of Buckland, drawing by C. Allan Brown 2004 Petition to establish the Town of Buckland, 8 December 1797 Pest Resistant Wheat John Love to James Madison, 15 July 1817 (page 1 of 3) John Love was growing a strand of wheat called “The Lawler,” which had a natural resistance to the Hessian Fly, an insect that eventually devastated U.S. wheat crops during the nineteenth century. In a letter from John Love to President Madison, Love stated that James Monroe had visited Buckland, “and who being satisfied from the appearance of the Lawler wheat contrasted with the common kinds, that it was not injured by the Hessian Fly, engaged with me (John Love) for 200 bushels for himself and would also reserve the same quantity” for Presidents Jefferson and Madison. John Love, who was instructed in law by George Wythe at the College of William and Mary, corresponded with Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Latrobe, Andrew Jackson, James Cabell and many other notables, about political and agricultural issues of the day. Thomas Jefferson to John Love, 03 August 1817 Origins of the American Thoroughbred Buckland was also known for its horses. Beginning in the 1780’s, John and Samuel Love Jr. (who had moved to “Salisbury” in Loudon County) began to import fine Arabian and European horses to breed. The blood lines of their stallions “Mahomet” and “Spread Eagle” are listed among the origins of the modern thoroughbred. Love’s operation at Buckland became one of the first large-scale breeding farms in Virginia along with “Salisbury” and “Bowling Green.” In 1789, George Washington bought one of these horses “for his own use.” He corresponded with and introduced the Loves to James McHenry, Secretary of War under President John Adams. The Loves furnished McHenry with “a number of horses for the United States Army” in 1799. Advertisement for horse Spread Eagle, Alexandria Gazette 09 February 1799 Advertisement for horse Mahomet, Republican Journal & Dumfries Advertiser 19 May 1796 Transportation Firsts 1834 drawing of bridge over Cedar Run (above); 2004 photograph of original stone bridge abutment at Buckland (below) Buckland continued to prosper through the first part of the nineteenth century. In 1808, newly elected U.S. Congressman John Love formed the Fauquier-Alexandria Turnpike Company (Fig. 31) “for the purpose of making an artificial turnpike road first from Fauquier Court House to Buckland Farm or Buckland Town, and thence to the Little River Turnpike Road, at the most suitable point for affording a convenient way from Fauquier Court House to Alexandria.” Around this time, a wooden bridge with stone abutments was constructed in the center of the town, to accommodate the anticipated traffic. The abutments still stand and are visible today from Route 29. In 1813, John Love wrote to his friend, current President James Madison, and described the progress of the turnpike road construction as “affording the most direct route from Washington to the Kanhawa Country” asking “for your aid and the patronage of your name as a stockholder,” which was likely to encourage the work. Over a ten-year period, the Turnpike Company gained several private stockholders and subscribers from the Board of Public Works, and its members invoked the Virginia Fund for Internal Improvement in order to bring French Engineer Claudius Crozet, bridge builder for Napoleon, to inspect and redesign the thoroughfare between Buckland and Warrenton. In 1823, Crozet had been appointed Virginia state engineer, making the turnpike at Buckland one of his first American projects. Crozet’s exacting supervision was instrumental in making the Fauquier-Alexandria Turnpike the first road in Virginia to use a revolutionary stone paving system invented by John Loudon McAdam in 1816. Claudius Crozet (courtesy Virginia Military Institute Archives). Forty-eight lot plan of the town of Buckland, drawn using metes and bounds descriptions from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century deeds Earlier the Town Trustees had decided that Buckland would be improved by building the turnpike through the center of town rather than at the north end, where the old wooden bridge at Bridge Street and the old ford at Love Street had accommodated through travelers over Broad Run before 1775. An 1820 survey map drawn by George Love, John Love’s uncle, depicts the path of the road and is of further significance as the first accurate map of Fauquier County. The area of approximately four original town lots was condemned in 1823, and the newly paved road connected to the recently finished stone bridge. Several new buildings were built beside the McAdam road, including a toll house and the Stage Coach Inn. The 1826 Fauquier-Alexandria Turnpike Company Report reads “of the new road now making upon McAdam’s Plan, from Buckland to Warrenton…there have been completed during the last year, about four miles…the experiment of a road plan entirely new in the State; and now for the first time introduced has been fairly tested; and has been found fully to answer the expectations of the most sanguine and will justify the belief that its general adoption would produce immense advantages to the Fund for Internal Improvement, as well as the Country generally. It has become the admiration of the neighborhood, and is well worthy the attention of all friends to Internal Improvement.” The 1827 report describes “the new road from Warrenton to Buckland, which is now entirely completed, and is acknowledged to be the best road in Virginia.” These reports, by Crozet and other engineers, indicate that periodic floods damaged sections of the road as well as the wooden parts of the bridge, which were constantly being rebuilt. Despite these obstacles, the Turnpike experiment was a success, and for the next two decades regional markets were connected in an unprecedented way, generating commerce and affluence even in small, inland towns such as Buckland. George Love’s county map of northern Virginia, 03 August 1820 19th Century Town Between the time it was founded and the Civil War, Buckland prospered from its industrial and commercial endeavors, as well as the many travelers who came through on the new turnpike. In 1830, Mrs. Anne Royall, a notoriously critical travel writer, followed the road to Buckland. In her book, “Mrs. Royall’s Southern Tour”, she described the town as “a romantic, lively, business doing village, situated on a rapid, rolling stream...several manufactories are propelled by this stream which adds much to the scenery. Buckland owns the largest distillery I have seen in my travels. The buildings, vats and vessels are quite a show. There is also flour manufactory here on a very extensive scale – the stream is a fund of wealth to the citizens… encompassed with rising grounds and rocks, the roaring of the water-falls, and the town stretching up to the tops of the hills, was truly picturesque.” She further described Buckland as “a real Yankee town for business.” It was also hailed “the Lowell of Prince William” some years later in the Manassas Journal. Constant travel brought new enterprises, such as the Pony Express and William Smith’s Stagecoach Line, so that by 1835, Buckland was a thriving stagecoach town complete with its own Post Office and Stagecoach Inn. Martin’s Gazateer of Virginia 1835, lists the population “130 whites; of whom 1 is a physician; and 50 blacks.” The African-American citizens of Buckland, from the beginning, were skilled laborers who owned land and slaves of their own in the late eighteenth century. Rather than assuming the name of another, one former slave who must have been proud of his work in the Buckland Distillery, called himself “Ned Distiller” and is listed on the 1810 census as freed. Samuel King of Buckland, freeman of colour, emancipated his wife Celia and others in 1811. Celia King operated the Turnpike tollgate at Buckland and sold horse-shaped molasses cookies there for many years. “Kinsley Mill” (watercolor), undated Deed of Emancipation, Samuel King to Celia King, 07 October 1811 (Prince William Deed Book 4, Page 335).