Stephens Family

Stephens Family is a Virginia historical marker in Frederick County, dedicated 2019.

Frederick County · dedicated 2019 · Stephens Run Street just west of intersection with Route 11

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Peter and Maria Stephens, German immigrants, settled here with their children in 1732. They had come from Pennsylvania with a group led by Jost Hite to form the Opequon settlement, a set of dispersed homesteads in this region. Archaeology reveals that the Stephens house occupied a site that Native Americans had once inhabited. Peter and Maria's son Lewis, land speculator, entrepreneur, and militia officer, laid out a town here, which the General Assembly established as Stephensburgh in 1758. The town, later known as Newtown and then as Stephens City, was about a day’s wagon journey south of Winchester, setting a precedent for similarly spaced developments along the Great Valley Road.

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Stephens Family

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