New London History

Sources

In 1747, brothers Richard and Francis Callaway patented land in Lunenburg County, Virginia (Morgan 1941: 31). Nestled at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the western piedmont, Lunenburg was a vast expanse of wilderness with a few scattered homesteads. The first Europeans said to inhabit this area were Scotch-Irish farmers who arrived as early as the 1730’s. By the 1740’s English and Huguenot families had also settled in the area (Historical Committee…1976: 9-10). By 1750 William and James Callaway, brothers of Francis and Richard, owned and operated a mill on Buffalo Creek, and a store nearby, where they bought farmers’ tobacco and hemp products and supplied county planters with goods.
In May of 1754 Bedford County was formed from Lunenburg County and the first court was held at the home of Matthew Talbot, a neighbor of William Callaway. By August, Callaway had decided to donate 100 acres of nearby land for the construction of a town. He also offered, and was commissioned to build, a timber prison and a “rough building to serve as a courthouse” (Hendricks 1991: 153-154). By November the court was completed. It wasn’t until 1757, however, that Callaway transferred title to the land and the court made the first charter for the town to be called New London. In 1761, lots for the town were laid out on a grid pattern with two parallel avenues crossing a main street. These lots were ordered by the court to be half acres “each as long again as wide” and to be sold by lottery for 1 pound, 1 shilling and 8 pence. A provision was included with the plan that stipulated purchasers were to “build a frame house twenty by sixteen on each lot within one year after purchasing the same, and a brick or stone chimney within four years.” If the owner failed to meet these obligations the land reverted to the county (BCOB 1B: 73). 
The town grew quickly, and by 1766 healthy competition existed between merchants like John Hook and James Callaway. The New London merchants were backed by a number of Scottish firms that facilitated trade between merchant and planter. The latest European imports were exchanged for tobacco, hemp, ginseng and deerskins (Hendricks 1991: 158). There was also at least one tavern in the town and a number of ordinaries, like the one owned by John Thompson. A new courthouse was constructed in 1766 to meet the needs of a growing county.
By the outbreak of the American Revolution, New London had already been established as the western-most center on a major trade route from Virginia to the Western frontier. It was situated along what would become the Lynchburg - Salem Turnpike. The turnpike and its predecessor were the main route westward from the tidewater area to the frontier of western Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. New London was also a regional supply center for plantations, but its significance was about to greatly increase. Its strategic locale attracted the attention of the Continental Army and the town became a military supply center. During the Revolution it boasted an arsenal, muster grounds, arms magazine, laboratory, prison and several gun repair shops (Smart 1993: 223). 
Many of New London’s residents, particularly the Scottish merchants, were sympathetic to the British cause and in 1780 word leaked out of a Tory conspiracy. A group of area gentry led by William Callaway and Colonel Charles Lynch took the lead in rounding up suspected Tories and flogging or imprisoning them. Since this group acted as both judge and jury (with the blessing of the Commonwealth of Virginia) their actions gave rise to the term “Lynch’s Law” (Christian 1967: 19).
In 1781, Francois Jean Marquis de Chastellux, a well known traveler of North America, noted that New London was “an infant town, but already pretty considerable, for there are at least seventy or eighty houses. There is likewise a military magazine established here, and several workshops for repairing arms. Its situation, in the middle of the woods, far distant from the seat of war, as well as commerce, does not require it should be fortified, but nature has prepared everything to make it a strong place” (Chastellux: 1782).
In its heyday, New London was frequented by leading national figures including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, General Nathaniel Greene, the Marquise de Lafayette and Robert Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson’s Poplar Forest plantation was located just three miles north of New London and Henry, an area resident, argued one of his most famous court cases there. Andrew Jackson passed triumphantly through New London on his return from the Battle of New Orleans and is said to have made the town a preferred stop-over on his later travels between the White House and his Hermitage Plantation in Tennessee.

AMERICAN MUSKET FLINTLOCK .75 C 1775. Copyright Springfield Armory

After Cornwallis’s surrender, New London became a storage depot and a halt was put to cartridge and arms production. The arsenal was partially removed to Harper’s Ferry and the town’s economy suffered. To make matters worse, Campbell County was carved from Bedford County in 1781 and a new county seat was established for both. These losses threw New London into a steady decline that was exacerbated by the growth of nearby Lynchburg.
Early attempts to revive the town included the establishment of schools like the New London Academy in 1795 and the Roland Academy for girls in 1812. The New London Academy was erected one mile west of town on land donated by John Callaway. Thomas Jefferson believed the academy to be one of the best and took care to gain admission for his grandson, Francis Eppes (Jefferson to Eppes March 13, 1818, in Siddons 1994: 23). Today the New London Academy exists as a public elementary school. The Roland Academy, meanwhile, was erected on the lot across from the courthouse. It closed in 1822 but the building that housed the academy and later served as a hotel remains.
In 1804, a traveler named John Howell Briggs recorded the declining state of the town in his diary. Briggs wrote “…a number of handsome and comfortable houses are tenantless, and there seems to be but a few inhabitants” (Briggs 1804). In his 1845 history of Virginia, Henry Howe characterizes New London as a “broken down village, fast going to decay.” He also writes “there is now standing in the town, an interesting relic of a more prosperous era-the old courthouse-which, in its pristine days, was the scene of important events: but it is now dilapidated, tumbling to ruins, and used as a barn” (Howe 1845: 213). Another account says the courthouse was standing until 1856, after which it was burnt down or dismantled (Read 1950:30).
These early writers were perhaps a bit overzealous in writing New London’s obituary. Though the town would never live up to its founders’ heady expectations, new evidence is being found that suggests New London was a modest business and social center throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.
Beginning in the 1850’s New London achieved notoriety for an entirely new reason. Recognizing the popularity of alum and its healing powers, residents of New London, including tavern-keeper Peregrine Echols, began bottling and selling alum water from a nearby spring. The town’s name was changed from New London to Bedford Alum Springs to attract tourism, and in 1876 a large resort was built complete with rows of cottages, a water fountain, a brick lined path of Osage orange trees leading to the springs and a grand semicircular drive (Read 1950: 34-35). The resort survived into the early twentieth century as a getaway for the well-to-do, including a bevy of silent film stars. The alum fad eventually died, as did the business, however, the original hotel still stands.
The name of the old town has reverted to New London, but today only the trained eye can detect traces of its colonial past. A new generation of New Londoners has established homes and businesses throughout the community. 

Created by the Friends of New London, Virginia, Inc.