Mount Gilead is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Loudoun County Loudoun County () is in the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. In 2020, the census returned a population of 420,959, making it Virginia's third-most populous county. Loudoun County's seat is Leesburg. Loudoun C ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. Mount Gilead lies atop an peak of Catoctin Mountain to the east of the North Fork Goose Creek.

History

Mount Gilead began in 1821 when Dr. Isaac Eaton purchased on the western slope of Catoctin Mountain on the road from Leesburg to Coes Mill on the North Fork of Goose Creek for the purpose of founding a health spa from the mountain springs there. In 1823 Eaton sold three half-acre lots on his property for the establishment of a settlement named Mount Gilead, after the biblical mountain. The following year, his dream was given legitimacy by the establishment of a post office in the village. By 1835 the village had extended to 22 lots and several streets had been laid out. Though the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

largely passed by Mount Gilead, Eaton's spa went out of business due to lack of patrons during the war. In the postbellum years, the village continued to grow and prosper, with a school opening in 1870 and the establishment of several stills at the springs that once fed the spa. The beginning of the end for Mount Gilead came in 1889 with the closing of Coes Mill. The post office was closed in 1905 and the school in 1918. With the coming of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...

in 1921, the last of Mount Gilead's industries literally dried up and, by 1930, the county stopped maintaining the road from Mount Gilead to North Fork, thus placing the village at the end of a dead end road. Today the village still exists as a small residential community, which in small way has returned to the spirits industry in the form of Willowcroft Vineyard which operates just north of the village.

References

* Scheel, Eugene, M., ''Loudoun Discovered:Communities and Crossroads, Volume Four ,Quaker Country and the Loudoun Valley.'' Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, Virginia, 2002. * Ray, William C., ''Mount Gilead History & Heritage.'' Fifth Revised Edition. Leesburg, Virginia, 2013. {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Loudoun County, Virginia Washington metropolitan area Unincorporated communities in Virginia