How Stephens City, Virginia Got Its Name

I have often wondered how the tiny village of Stevensburg in Culpeper County beat out Stephensburg of Frederick County for post office naming rights. I did some research on these two towns and discovered some interesting historical facts about both colonial era communities.

Stephensburg, VA

In the Fall of 1758, during the French and Indian War, Lewis Stephens successfully petitioned the colonial government of Virginia in Williamsburg for a town charter. He cited an urgent need for the frontier population to establish a town to better defend themselves against raids by Native Americans and their French allies. Stephens City was founded as Stephensburg on October 12, 1758 and originally settled by individuals of Scottish, Scotch-Irish, Irish and German ancestry.

Stephensburg would become the second oldest town in the Shenandoah Valley behind nearby Winchester. The town became a commercial hub as it was strategically located along the "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road" (what is now U.S. Route 11) and the "Old Dutch Wagon Road" (what is now State Route 277), once a major transportation artery from Alexandria to all points west.

In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries, Stephensburg became prosperous as a crossroads village with small scale industries, featuring production of the renowned Newtown Wagon. This immense wagon, which in strength and durability of material and workmanlike finish, was not surpassed. The wagon rivaled their famous prototypes, the Conestoga wagons of Pennsylvania. Spacious enough to carry all that the six powerful horses could draw over the rough roads and strong enough to sustain the weight of four tons, the Newtown Wagon became legendary for its sturdiness among both Virginia farmers and settlers migrating to the far West, including the Gold Rush of 1849. Blacksmiths, wheelwrights, tanneries, saddle and harness makers, silversmiths and machine shops were established to support the wagon making industry.

Hearsay has it that as the town limits expanded northward on the west side of Rt. 11 in 1799, that area became known as the "Newtown Addition." By the time of the Civil War, Stephensburg’s nickname of “Newtown” had become the dominant name for which the entire town was known. However the prominent wagon makers traditionally advertised their businesses’ name on the hind-end gate of the wagons they produced and consistently included the Newtown/Stephensburg address. In writing documents or directing letters folks used both names or often just N. T. Stephensburg. So the Newtown/Stephensburg naming tradition was still in vogue.

In July 1870, the new Winchester and Strasburg Railroad was completed, which connected Newtown for the first time with Winchester and the Manassas Gap Railroad at Strasburg. Though the new railroad extension and town depot improved the local economy, which struggled after the Civil War, it decimated the wagon-building trade. Old support industries gradually disappeared.

However, the railway provided increased access to national markets for local produce, particularly apples, which had supplanted wheat as the principal agricultural crop in the Valley. An industrial district of Stephens City called "Mudville" was established around the new railroad station. Mudville included a cider and vinegar works, an apple-packing shed and a cooper’s shop kept busy supplying apple barrels for transport. A limestone quarry and lime kiln were opened in 1900 near the rail line, along with a steam-powered flour mill. This concentration of businesses formed the commercial and industrial base of the town into the twentieth century. Unfortunately, a major fire broke out in November, 1936 and destroyed most of the Mudville business district. Stephens City never fully recovered from this catastrophic event. The town continued to persist and later found its niche serving the local industrial, agricultural, educational, health and social service base. The current population is around 2,300.

Stevensburg, VA

The first German Colony migrated to the Virginia Piedmont in 1714 to work in Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood's iron mines in what is now Spotsylvania County. Spotswood called the settlement Germanna. A second colony from Kraichgau of Baden and Württemberg (tradesmen vice miners) arrived in 1717.

In the 1720s, a number of these early Germanna settlement families completed their indentured servitude and eventually crossed the Rapidan River, acquired land seven miles west of Germanna and called the community York. This tiny village grew to be well established by the mid-1700s at the busy intersection of Kirtley's Rolling Road and Carolina Road (what is now York and Stevensburg Roads) and for a time was the largest community in Culpeper County. The prosperous village built around historic Zimmerman’s Tavern (circa 1735), continued to develop along one of the eighteenth century's most heavily traveled thoroughfares, carrying settlers from Pennsylvania to Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas before the American Revolution.

In 1782, on 50 acres owned by William Bradley, the village was officially established by the Virginia Legislature, and York was renamed for Revolutionary War hero and Culpeper citizen, Brig. Gen. Edward Stevens who won acclaim battling Lord Cornwallis and his British troops at Yorktown. Stevensburg was the new frontier, a westward route, a hub for travel and had a promising future. A rapidly growing population and a new wealth gave rise to the establishment of the Southland Quaker Meeting Hall, a Masonic Lodge and Stevensburg Academy where the elite were educated and where a medical school was established. Stevensburg became the cultural center of Culpeper.

But the village, once a flourishing crossroads in Virginia saw its population decrease from 150 in 1835 to 96 in 1850. By 1880 the village population continued to dwindle due to the growth of nearby railroad communities established during the 1870s. The village’s close proximity to the Culpeper County Courthouse (six miles west) never allowed Stevensburg an opportunity to sustain a commercial economy tied to the exchange of goods, services and labor activities. The village moved quietly into the twentieth century supporting three stores, a saddlery and wheelwright enterprise and several blacksmiths. The town maintained a fire department in a livery stable. Into the twenty-first century, Stevensburg has become a small rural unincorporated community with a current population of around 200.

Confusion in names of two towns in two counties

In the late 1870s the United States Postal Service was struggling to deliver mail to the correct Virginia addresses because there were almost a dozen other townships in Virginia called Newtown and there were two communities with almost identical names: Newtown/Stephensburg in Frederick County and another Stevensburg in Culpeper County. The Postal Department in Washington, D.C informed the people of Newtown/Stephensburg in February of 1880 that the town would be requested to change its name.

After a community meeting, the town’s postmaster was sent to Washington with orders to have the historic name maintained. The Postal Department refused to change its previous direction but would consider any other name that was not already taken by another post office in Virginia. At a second community meeting the people of Stephensburg drafted a list of names that included the following: Newton City, Newtonburg, Newtonfield, Newtolona, Newtonapolis and Stephens City. The name “Stephens City” was chosen by popular vote, and shortly thereafter (April 1880) the town post office was officially re-christened.

Now if Stephensburg (Frederick) was recognized by Virginia’s Colonial General Assembly in 1758 and Stevensburg (Culpeper) was not recognized until 1782, how did that little village, with one of the smallest post office buildings in Virginia and situated 70 miles to the southeast, outhustle our town for the historic naming rights?

A likely explanation is provided

Rick Kriebel, Manager of Collections and Programs, Newtown History Center of the Stone House Foundation in Stephens City, was able to shed some light on this very topic and provided his insight. He did not have a definite answer to my question, however Rick had plenty of program knowledge on this matter. Information his office had collected over the years creates a likely explanation of why Culpeper’s Stevensburg got to keep their name and we didn’t. In short, they most likely serviced more people at the time.

Rick informed me that his predecessor, Wayne Eldred fielded this question to an acquaintance at the National Postal Museum some years ago. The associate at the Museum said the United States Postal Service would prioritize a post office that serviced a greater population. So if the Stevensburg Post Office served more people than the Newtown/Stephensburg Post Office, then the former would get to retain its naming rights.

It appears this was the case. Rick consulted with the Culpepper County Library System’s historian and they found that in 1880, Newtown/Stephensburg had a population in of 479, while Stevensburg had just 61 people. However, the census for that year reflects a magisterial district for Stevensburg which numbered 2,655 people (an increase of 655 from 1870).

By contrast, there was no district for Newtown/Stephensburg that year—we belonged to the Opequon Magisterial District, which numbered 3,003 people (a decrease of 1,411 from 1870), but included the 372 people of Middletown. Remove them—and their post office—from the equation and we had less people than Stevensburg from a magisterial standpoint (2,631 to 2,655). Rick also added that Mountain Falls, Star Tannery, Gravel Springs, Fawcett Gap, Meadow Mills, Marlboro, Parkins Mill and other surrounding areas included in the Opequon District also had post offices that year. Unfortunately these nearby post offices would have lowered our service numbers even more so.

It appears the Newtown/Stephensburg post office just served less people than Stevensburg’s in 1880. Since they had their own magisterial district which supplemented the amount of people served, Rick ascertains that this is enough evidence to make population differences a likely reason why they got to keep the historic name and we didn’t.

The name Stevens City conveys an image of a mining town in Nevada, Utah or Colorado. Stephensburg is just so much more appropriate for this enchanting village nestled in the Lower Shenandoah Valley.

If there is anyone out there who has additional information to share on this subject or believes there is a reason why the Stephensburg name should be reinstated, please contact Mark Gunderman (a resident of Stephens City) at gunderman2001@aol.com.