Declaring that “Lord Fairfax doesn’t represent anything we are about,” the Lord Fairfax Community College Board will rename the college to better reflect the vision and mission of its students and surrounding communities.

William Grimes, the fugitive runaway slave who became famous for authoring the first-ever narrative of an enslaved African-American, wrote that he endured continuous physical and mental abuse while kept at Col. William Thornton’s “Montpelier” plantation along today’s F.T. Valley Road in Rappahannock County.

To rename or not to rename? That will be the question surrounding Lake Pelham - which is believed to be named after a Confederate soldier - during a Feb. 9 Culpeper Town Council meeting. 

This comes after a town committee consisting of elected officials recently forwarded a recommendation to the council that the lake be renamed. 

When the Scrabble School Preservation Foundation and Culpeper Media decided on a fitting theme — "The Fierce Urgency of Now" — for Sunday evening’s virtual musical production in honor of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, little did they foresee this month’s deadly insurrection of the U.S. Capitol.

Powhatan referred to the Manahoac tribe as Anchanachuck — “those who hunt in the mountains.” The small band of Native Americans — barely a thousand strong when wiped off the map in the early 1700s — are among the proclaimed “indigenous peoples” of Rappahannock County.

Although perfume making began in Egypt during the second millennium BC, the first of the modern perfumes was created in 1370 by the Hungarians, for Queen Elizabeth of Hungary.

Missy Sutton: ‘As a descendant of William Jackson Rutherford, who was forced to leave his [Sperryville area] home when his 300 acres were condemned, I find comfort knowing the story of what happened’

In the mid-1930s, there were still families in the foothills above Sperryville and tucked back in the hollows who didn’t have enough food.

Teacher and principal at Sperryville School from 1929 to 1969, then principal of the new Elementary School until her retirement in 1977, Mrs. Quaintance touched the lives of thousands of youngsters.

‘I’m so upset about you even putting this on the agenda that I’m going to start a petition to de-charter the town’

On Memorial Day 2020, eighteen Rapp at Home members joined on the popular Zoom platform to share their reminiscences of World War II. From memories of London to Long Island, Martha’s Vineyard to the Midwest, Austria to upstate New York, our neighbors recalled the mundane and the horrors of the war that ended 75 years ago.

Rocky Marciano, who held the world boxing heavyweight title from 1952 to 1956, visits Pellegatta's restaurant in Bethlehem, Pa., operated by several generations of the Sperryville author's family, including his father, Ted Pellegatta, Sr.

‘We had one recipient . . . who had turned 100 . . . while our last recipient was asleep and would receive his coin later’

In 1918, in the midst of a national quarantine to fight the Spanish flu, women of Flint Hill gathered in the old Red Cross Building fronting Route 522 to roll bandages to treat the wounded soldiers of World War I. 

County comp plan, town markers profess unlikely historical link to nation’s first president

Sperryville cobbler somehow grows rich during Civil War; ‘Did they hit a gold [wagon] train and bury it?’

A winter’s day and time to sort through bins long stashed away in storage. An envelope, a folder, a piece of paper, another folder with a picture frame… and what slipped out? 

Rappahannock County, it turns out, has historical ties to the first African child born on mainland America. 

The graveyard was interesting. There were many coffin-sized depressions in the ground and there were headstones, some going back to the 1800’s.

Editor’s note: Rappahannock County last week lost one of its leading entrepreneurs, raconteurs and a genuinely fine fellow, Nevill Turner. He was English born and educated, a world traveler, Rappahannock resident since 2005, and a proud America citizen since 2010. 

The death of H.B. Wood on October 19 marked the passing of Rappahannock’s Old Guard. 

‘Your heart rate goes up, and you immediately start thinking why is this here? What happened?’ 

Author confronts ‘legend’ that a young George Washington surveyed town named in his honor

‘Our family history is a part of this place’

By the time the 318th Infantry Regiment of the 80th Infantry Division, with men from Rappahannock County, was relieved of frontline combat on October 7, 1918, it had lost almost one-third of its strength. From September 26 to October 7, casualties were 108 killed, 908 wounded and 2 missing, …

Site committee visited Rosenwald school ‘and are very pleased and impressed’

There were different ‘tribes’ among 200 hippies in Rappahannock

School for African Americans closed when county schools were desegregated

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was the greatest American battle in World War One. It was located in France as shown on the map below.

Arye Ephrath and his family’s amazing story of Holocaust survival

By Sally Latham Haynes

From Thornton Gap to Thornton River to F.T. (Francis Thornton) Valley Road and beyond, there were six Francis Thorntons associated with Rappahannock County between 1731 and 1840, one of whom laid out Sperryville in 1817. Rappahannock Historical Society researcher Maureen Harris in 2015 wrote…

Rappahannock native Edward Homer Bailey Sr., was born on Sept. 12, 1909 to Edward and Lovace Maggie Brown Bailey. On Dec. 28, 1931 he married Ethel V. Timbers, daughter of Henry and Josie Fitzhugh Timbers. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II — from Feb. 7, 1944 through Nov. 2, 194…

‘Prior to 1940, the military was the most segregated, was the most racist segment of America’

State legislators pass resolutions regretting Virginia lynchings