Staunton, Virginia
The area was first settled in 1732 by John Lewis and family. In 1736, William Beverley , a wealthy planter and merchant from Essex County, was granted by the Crown over 118,000 acres in what would become Augusta County.
Surveyor Thomas Lewis in 1746 laid out the first town plat for Beverley of what was originally called Beverley’s Mill Place. Founded in 1747, it was renamed in honor of Lady Rebecca Staunton, wife to Royal Lieutenant-Governor Sir William Gooch. Because the town was located at the geographical center of the colony., Staunton served between 1738 and 1771 as regional capital for what was known as the Northwest Territory, with the western most courthouse in British North American prior to the Revolutionary War.
By 1760, Staunton was one of the major “remote trading centers in the back-country” which coordinated the transportation of the vast amounts of grain and tobacco then being produced in response to the change of Britain from a net exporter of produce to an importer.
Staunton thus played a crucial role in the mid-18th century expansion of the economies of the American Colonies which, in turn, contributed to the success of the American Revolution. It served as capital of Virginia in June 1781, when state legislators fled Richmond and then Charlottesville to avoid capture by the British.
Like most of colonial Virginia, slavery was present in Staunton.
Located along the Valley Pike, Staunton developed as a trade , transportation and industrial center, particularly after the Virginia Central Railroad arrived in 1854. Factories made carriages, wagons, organs, boots, shoes,clothing and blankets. In 1860, the Staunton Military Academy was founded. By 1860, Staunton had at least one pro-Union, pro-slavery (the Staunton Spectator) and at least one pro-secession, pro-slavery newspaper (the Staunton Vindicator). The Spectator ran editorials before the war urging its citizens to vote for union while the Vindicator ran, e.g., stories reporting on “unruly” slaves mutilating themselves to escape being sold.
On May 23, 1861, shortly after the firing on Fort Sumter began the American Civil War, Virginians voted on whether to ratify articles of secession from the Union and join the Confederate States. The articles were overwhelmingly approved throughout the Commonwealth, even in the majority of the counties that would later become West Virginia. The vote in Staunton was 3300 in favor of secession, with only 6 opposed. During the war, the town became an important Shenandoah Valley manufacturing center, a staging area, and a supply depot for the Confederacy
On June 6, 1864, Union Major General David Hunter arrived with 10,000 troops to cut supply, communication and railway lines useful to the Confederacy. The next day, they destroyed the railroad station, warehouses, houses, factories and mills. Union soldiers looted the stores and warehouses and confiscated supplies.
On July 10, 1902, Staunton became an independent city.
In 1908, Staunton created the city manager form of government. Charles E. Ashburner was hired by Staunton as the nation’s first city manager.
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