Neersville 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 ...

in northwestern

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 ...

, United States. It is located in the Between the Hills area of the

Loudoun Valley The Loudoun Valley is a small, but historically significant valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains located in Loudoun County in Northern Virginia in the United States. Geography The lush and fertile valley lies between Catoctin Mountain and the B ...

on Harpers Ferry Road (Virginia Secondary Route 671) at the foot of

Short Hill Mountain Short Hill Mountain is a mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest Loudoun County, Virginia. Geography Short Hill rises sharply from the Piedmont countryside of the Loudoun Valley, northwest of Purcellville. It is a low-lying ri ...

. It is notable for being the birthplace of

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

guerrilla John Mobberly.

History

Neersville derives its name from the Neer brothers, Conrad and William, who were in the 1770s the first to lease and later own the land around the present village .Mary Fishback, Thomas Balch: Loudoun County: 250 Years of Towns and Villages, Library Commission · 1999, pp. 111-11

/ref> Their land deeds began in 1786. The village began to coalesce around the dependencies of the Near farms in 1834 when the Lutheran Church was given a half acre on which they constructed St. Paul's Church. Within five years, the post office established a branch in the village which they christened Neersville and, with it, the "Capitol City" of Between the Hills was born. The village continued to prosper in the antebellum years, boasting two mills, a saw and grist, by 1850. Unfortunately because of the limited flow of Piney Run, only one could operate at a time. The village suffered some during 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 ...

, mostly by the burning of the bridge across the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...

, which kept the isolated village connected to the

Harpers Ferry Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia. It is located in the lower Shenandoah Valley. The population was 285 at the 2020 census. Situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where the U.S. stat ...

and the outside world via the

B&O Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

and

C&O Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C. and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Potomac Canal, wh ...

. Though the village was occupied by both armies during the war, no real fighting took place there. Following the conflict, the village began to prosper again, especially with the opening of Sagle Road, which cut from the Harpers Ferry Road at the village to the Charles Town Pike (present day Rt. 9) just east of

Keyes Gap Keyes Gap or Keyes' Gap is a wind gap in the Blue Ridge Mountain on the border of Loudoun County, Virginia and Jefferson County, West Virginia. The gap is traversed by Virginia State Route 9/ West Virginia Route 9. The Appalachian Trail also ...

and the opening of the Nathaniel Prince Road, which led east from the village across the Short Hill, connecting the village to Lovettsville. By 1885 the village even boasted a school. The 20th century was not so kind to Neersville. The population began to dwindle, the school closed in 1930, the general store closed in 1956 and by October 1970 even St. Paul's had closed its doors. Furthermore Nathaniel Prince Road was not incorporated into the county road system and thus was never graded and maintained for automobile use, thereby cutting off the village from Lovettsville. Neersville has a volutary fire department A library bus of the Loundon County library arrives once a month.

Newspapers

* ''Purcellville Gazette'' - weekly ''Purcellville Gazette''

References

* Scheel, Eugene M., ''Loudoun Discovered: Communities and Crossroads Volume 5, Waterford, The German Settlement and Between the Hills.'' The Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg Virginia, 2002. {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Loudoun County, Virginia Washington metropolitan area Unincorporated communities in Virginia