Colchester

Fairfax (County) County · dedicated 1999 · Rte. 1, approximately 150 feet south of Rte. 611

Colchester, founded in 1753 at the location of a ferry crossing, was the second town established in Fairfax County. Located on the main post road from Boston to Charleston, and at the end of the Ox Road leading west to the Blue Ridge, the town prospered as a trading center and tobacco port. In 1781, Gen. Washington and Comte de Rochambeau passed through Colchester en route to Yorktown. The creation of an alternate postal route over a new bridge upstream in 1805; the diversion of grain shipping from the Shenandoah Valley to Georgetown, Alexandria, and Baltimore; and, according to tradition, a great fire in 1815 contributed to the town's decline.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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