LEESBURG, VA — Long before Loudoun County became one of Virginia’s fastest-growing communities, it was a rural frontier where settlers were building new lives and the American colonies were moving toward independence. A walking tour in downtown Leesburg later this month will give residents a chance to explore what life was like here during the American Revolution.
Local historian Rich Gillespie will lead a two-hour walking tour, “Leesburg, Loudoun and the American Revolution,” on Saturday, November 14, beginning at 10 a.m. The tour will explore how the events leading up to American independence affected Leesburg and the surrounding county.
Loudoun County was still relatively new when tensions between the American colonies and Great Britain began escalating in the 1770s. Established in 1757 by Virginia’s House of Burgesses, the county was part of what historians now call the “Southern Back Country.”
Unlike Virginia’s more established Tidewater communities, Loudoun was shaped by settlers arriving from different directions. Many came south from Pennsylvania, while others moved inland from eastern Virginia. Their different backgrounds helped shape the county’s early communities, economy and political outlook.
The walking tour will connect that local history to the larger struggle for American independence, using Leesburg’s surviving historic landscape to help participants understand the community as it existed more than 250 years ago.
For longtime Loudoun residents, the tour also offers a reminder of how much history remains beneath the surface of a county that has changed dramatically over the past several decades. While new development has transformed much of the surrounding area, downtown Leesburg still retains buildings and streets that reflect its colonial beginnings.
Gillespie brings decades of experience teaching local history to the program. A longtime Loudoun County history teacher, he also serves as Historian Emeritus for the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area Association, an organization dedicated to preserving and interpreting the region’s historic and cultural resources.
The tour begins in the parking lot of the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg and will last approximately two hours. Participants should wear comfortable walking shoes, dress for November weather and bring water.
Space is limited to 50 participants, and advance registration is required.
Residents interested in attending can register through the Town of Leesburg’s online event registration page, call 703-737-7195 or email balchlib@leesburgva.gov.
With the nation’s 250th anniversary of independence being commemorated this year, the tour provides an opportunity to look beyond the familiar national stories of the Revolution and consider how those events unfolded in Loudoun County itself.
