Upperville, Virginia

Upperville is a municipality with 1,061 inhabitants (2007) in the US state Virginia . The place is 80 km west of Washington, DC in Fauquier County . It is not far from the Blue Ridge Mountains and is intersected by US Highway 50 .

history

In 1775, George Washington acquired land in what is now Upperville. This also included one of the oldest buildings in the area, which is now operated as an inn under the name 1793 Inn . The actual town was founded in 1790, when Josephus Carr divided his property into 50 parcels along today's Highway 50 and gave the place the name Carrstown. In 1819 the place was renamed Upperville. During the Civil War , the Upperville area was the site of a battle during the Gettysburg Campaign that went down in history as the Battle of Upperville . On June 21, 1863, Union troops led by General Alfred Pleasonton met Confederate troops led by James Ewell Brown Stuart . About 10,000 members of the army took part in the battle, 400 of whom died on the spot. The oldest church in town, the United Methodist Church, built in 1832, served as a hospital for the Union troops during the battle.

Upperville today

The community has been shaped by agriculture as it has been since it was founded. In addition to the cultivation of grain, the place is above all a center for horse breeding. The Upperville Colt and Horse Show , which has been held in the town since 1853 , is the oldest horse show in the USA. After the Second World War, Upperville also developed into a preferred place of residence for the upper class of the nearby Washington DC After visiting the community in 1961, John Updike wrote the poem Upon Learning That a Town Exists Called Upperville .

Web links

• Statistical data on the population of Upperville
• Statistics on the economy in Upperville
• John Updike's poem about Upperville

Coordinates: 39 ° 0 ′  N , 77 ° 53 ′  W