Fairfax Line

Fairfax Line is a Virginia historical marker in Shenandoah County, dedicated 2017.

Rte. 11 at Shenandoah/Rockingham County line

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Here ran the Fairfax Line, surveyed in 1746 to mark the southwestern boundary of the Northern Neck Proprietary, a 5.2-million-acre land grant inherited by Thomas, 6th Lord Fairfax. The grant encompassed all the land between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. Peter Jefferson and Robert Brooke, representing the Virginia colony, and Benjamin Winslow and Thomas Lewis, representing Lord Fairfax, surveyed this 76-mile line between the headsprings of these rivers during a nearly two-month expedition over several rugged and largely uninhabited mountain ranges. The Fairfax Line marks the boundary between Rockingham and Shenandoah Counties and, for nine miles, between Virginia and West Virginia.

Maps this old were drawn largely by eye, so places on them can sit miles from where they really are. The pin is ours and marks the marker's location today.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1755 · Virginie, Maryland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1794 · Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1822 · Maryland (Lucas, 1822) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1926 · Proposed Shenandoah National Park, Virginia / engraved and printed by the U.S. Geological… (University Library, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Historical map (University Library, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Virginie, Maryland, 1755, covering the location of Fairfax Line, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Virginie, Maryland, 1755, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

Example

For example, one family's tree showed the Articles of Confederation marker in Pennsylvania standing under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s.

What that marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years there.

From one family's 77-marker roster

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The marker isn't at this spotOur pin may be off. If you know where it stands, tell us.I couldn't find the markerWe record what the source recorded. We have not been to look.The sign reads differentlyThat would be an error, and we can pass it to the program.The historical map looks wrongThe period map behind the pin, not the marker itself.Something else

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Marker program managed by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

Fairfax Line

Historical maps covering this location

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