Historic Port Conway

Historic Port Conway is a Virginia historical marker in King George County, dedicated 1999.

Rte. 301, approximately 0.3 miles south of Rte. 3 intersection

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The site of Port Conway is located five miles south on the Rappahannock River. Francis Conway laid out the town in 1783, and the next year the Virginia General Assembly passed an act establishing it. James Madison, Father of the Constitution and fourth president of the United States, was born at the Conway house on 16 March 1751. On 1 Sept. 1863 Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick's Federal cavalry shelled two Union gunboats at Port Conway that had been captured by Confederates. John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, fled across the river there on 24 Apr. 1865. Little remains of the town today.

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)
1755 · (Canada, Louisiane et Terres Angloises. Southeast section) (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1781 · MARCH of the ARMY under Lieut:t General EARL CORNWALLIS in VIRGINIA, from the JUNCTION at… (Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library)
1794 · Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1814 · Maryland (1814) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Virginie, Maryland, 1755, covering the location of Historic Port Conway, 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.

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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.

Historic Port Conway

Historical maps covering this location

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