Historic Stevensburg

Historic Stevensburg. Crossroads Community. Founded in 1782, Stevensburg sits at the important intersection of the Old Carolina Road and Kirtley Road - the intersection where you now stand. The community is named for General Edward Stevens, a local Revolutionary War leader and state politician. The Old Carolina road (Route 633) served east-west traffic. surrounded by large plantations, this community would have offered a place to stop and rest in the decades following the Revolutionary War., Transportation and commerce shaped Stevensburg's early development. The town had several taverns, a doctor's office, and a nearby campsite for wagon teams that trucked produce to and from Fredericksburg, the major trade center nearby. Quakers lived in Stevensburg during the late 18th century, but left as the town's population grew to 200 people by the early 19th century. While that population seems small today, it was briefly the largest town in Culpeper County and considered as a potential site for the University of Virginia. , By the mid-1800s, Stevensburg's population had declined as Culpeper Court House grew to the west. The county's ethnic population changed as enslaved and African-descendant free men and women became the majority. Of 12,063 people in Culpeper County in 1860, 6,675 were enslaved and 429 were free blacks. Stevensburg served as an important crossroads in the Civil War, positioned halfway from the Union capital of Washington, D.C. and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Union and Confederate troops fought in the area throughout the war, including the Battle of Brandy Station, June 9, 1863. The ongoing fighting left Stevensburg in ruins by the end of the war., Sidebar, bottom of marker: , Stevensburg gained a notorious reputation for horseracing and cockfighting through the late 18th and early 19th centuries, especially at the wagon camp known as Wicked Bottom located southeast of this sign.