Charlie Ashby Tucked into the hills of northwestern Fauquier County was a place still known by locals as the Free State—a rural twelve-square-mile region bordered by the Rappahannock Mountains, Orlean, Thumb Run, and the “Graded Road to Marshall” (the road from Marshall to Ada and Hume). The land was originally part of the Manor of Leeds, an area granted to Lord Fairfax and populated by tenant farmers who were supposed to pay rent. The area was so rural that the collection of said rents was...

Robert Newton “Bob” Ford, best known for killing outlaw Jesse James, is usually associated with Missouri. Some Fauquier County sources, however, identify him as having been born in the county, in the Hume area, before his family moved west during his childhood.

Home of the Fauquier Heritage and Preservation Foundation Fauquier County’s hidden gem for historical and genealogical research Fauquier History? Gotta get to The Gott! The library houses an extensive collection of materials documenting the people, places, and stories of Fauquier County. Researchers will find : Detailed research files compiled by several local historians whose life’s work focused on Fauquier County Early land records, grants , and hand-drawn plats Historic maps and...