Spencer's Ordinary

Spencer's Ordinary is a Virginia historical marker in just outside Freedom Park, James City County, dedicated 2016.

Route 614, at intersection with Route 612, just outside Freedom Park

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During the spring of 1781, outnumbered American troops under the Marquis de Lafayette monitored Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis's British forces as they raided central Virginia. In mid-June, Cornwallis turned toward Williamsburg. Lafayette, reinforced, sent a detachment under Col. Richard Butler to attack British Lt. Col. John G. Simcoe, who had left Cornwallis’s main column to conduct a raid along the Chickahominy River. On 26 June, Butler’s men found Simcoe’s rangers resting at Spencer’s Ordinary, just west of here. After a sharp but inconclusive skirmish, the two sides disengaged rather than risk a larger battle.

TodayHistorical map

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Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library

Historical maps covering this location

1755 · Virginie, Maryland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1778 · Il Maryland, il Jersey Meridionale, la Delaware. (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)
1807 · Map Of Virginia (lower right sheet) (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Virginie, Maryland, 1755, covering the location of Spencer's Ordinary, 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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Spencer's Ordinary

Historical maps covering this location

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