The prospect of dreadful times coming: The transforming community of Loudoun County, Virginia 1730s-1860s

Wedged in the northernmost corner of the Commonwealth of Virginia on the southern bank of the Potomac River, Loudoun County provided settlers excellent farmland with fertile soil to promote themselves economically in the early to mid-eighteenth century. Pennsylvania Quakers originally from northern England settled in the northern area of the county near the Potomac River and established communities representative of their Pennsylvania hometowns. In the southern portion of the county, non-Quaker English settled large plantations reminiscent of their roots in the eastern Tidewater region of Virginia. Scots-Irish Presbyterians and German Lutherans could be found along the western side of the county abutting the Blue Ridge Mountains and dispersed amongst the Quakers in the northern part of the county. Although these various ethno-religious groups were cordial with one another for nearly a century, as the strings of discord on the national scene were plucked in the turbulent 1850s, Loudoun County turned into a casebook example of a community torn asunder.