Sign in or create a free account to curate your search content.
Romney is located in the lower valley of the Potomac River's South Branch. The first Europeans to settle here were Job and John Pearsall, who arrived before 1738. By the late 1740s, around 200 settlers lived in the area, known as Pearsall's Flats, seeking safety during dangerous times on the frontier. When the French and Indian War began in 1754, these settlers took refuge in Fort Pearsall, which was guarded by George Washington's troops.
In 1762, Thomas, the Sixth Lord Fairfax, who owned a large part of what is now the Eastern Panhandle, convinced the governor of Virginia to make Pearsall's Flats the county seat for Hampshire County, which had been created in 1754. Fairfax renamed the town "Romney" after a place in his home country of England.
