Paris is a small unincorporated village in
Fauquier County,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
, United States, near the borders of
Loudoun
Loudoun () is a parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland and lies between five and ten miles east of Kilmarnock. The parish roughly encompasses the northern half of the Upper-Irvine Valley and borders Galston parish, Galston Parish (which encompasses ...
and
Clarke Counties. Located in Virginia's hunt country, it was established in a strategic spot at the eastern base of
Ashby Gap along
U.S. Route 17
U.S. Route 17 or U.S. Highway 17 (US 17), also known as the Coastal Highway, is a north–south United States Numbered Highway that spans in the Southeastern United States. It runs close to the East Coast of the United States, At ...
and
U.S. Route 50
U.S. Route 50 or U.S. Highway 50 (US 50) is a major east–west route of the U.S. Highway system, stretching from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento, California, to Maryland Route 528 (MD 528) in Ocean City, Maryland, on the Atlantic ...
.
History
Peter Glascock acquired the deed for what became the town in 1786 from Kimball Hicks. The land had been part of the
Northern Neck Proprietary
The Northern Neck Proprietary – also called the Northern Neck land grant, Fairfax Proprietary, or Fairfax Grant – was a land grant first contrived by the exiled English King Charles II in 1649 and encompassing all the lands bounded by the Pot ...
and also part of
Thomas Lord Fairfax's Leeds Manor.
Hicks had operated a tavern nearby since 1782, and Glascock also operated a similar venture, both of which were sometimes cited for failure to adhere to the terms of their licenses. A post office existed by September 1800. The Virginia General Assembly in 1810 issued a charter for a town at the intersection of Ashby Gap Road (which it authorized to be paved that year and later became Route 50) and the Dumfries-Winchester Road (which later became Route 17), although the town was actually platted two decades earlier (and not all of the 14 planned streets were ever completed).
Scheel tells us that this village was known as "Punkin Ville", which has nothing to do with pumpkins, but "punkin" was slang for an out-of-the-way and insignificant place. Hagemann tells us that in 1819 the town was named to memorialize the tour of the returning
Marquis de Lafayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (), was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Conti ...
to the United States after the War of 1812. No written account explains why the place was not directly named after the Marquis, although Peter Glascock served in the Revolutionary Army and greatly admired him. Hagemann's account seems unlikely in light of both the creation of the Paris US Post Office and the assignment of a postmaster/mail routes in 1800, and the town was created in 1810 in a place that was already called Paris.
The market town prospered in the early 19th century (with a population of 200 in 1835) but lagged in the middle of the century because none of the newly constructed railroads went through it. It was last listed as an incorporated town in 1830. In 1835, Paris had several taverns, three stores, a school, and a church shared by several denominations as well as 25 dwellings, 2 saddlers, 2 blacksmiths, 2 wagonmakers, a tailor, a cabinetmaker, a chairmaker, a turner, a wheat fan maker, and three boot and shoe factories.
The
Manassas Gap Railroad
The Manassas Gap Railroad (MGRR) ran from Mount Jackson, Virginia, to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad's Manassas Junction, which later became the city of Manassas, Virginia. Chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1850, the MGRR was a n ...
, constructed in 1852, went slightly south through nearby
Marshall
Marshall may refer to:
Places
Australia
*Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria
** Marshall railway station
Canada
* Marshall, Saskatchewan
* The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia
Liberia
* Marshall, Liberia
Marshall Is ...
,
Delaplane, and
The Plains, Virginia, so Paris and its carting-based businesses declined. Because of its distance from the rail lines, the village saw little conflict during the American Civil War and was referred to in disparaging terms by both Confederate and Union writers. The population in 1880 was 134 persons in 22 households, including physicians, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, harness makers, tanners, shoemakers, carpenters, seamstresses and a bookkeeper and silversmith. The current Routes 17 and 50 were slightly rerouted outside the historic town (Ashby Gap turnpike was once the town's main street, and the old Ashby Hotel/tavern was destroyed in 1939 by a runaway truck coming down from the mountain).
The original Old Meetinghouse (built 1830 of brick) at 720 Republican Street was bequeathed by Peter Glasscock (who died in 1829). Multiple denominations used it before the American Civil War, and it became an African-American school late in the 19th century (and later a private residence). The Trinity United Methodist Church at 684 Federal Street, built by Henry S. Hanes in a Gothic Revival style in 1892–1893, as of 2011 was deconsecrated but available to host events. The regionally well known Ashby Inn is two doors from that church. In 1951, philanthropist Paul Mellon rebuilt Trinity Episcopal Church, once Meade Parish in nearby
Upperville, and whose structure taken down on account of dampness in 1895 had again become decrepit, in a Gothic revival style.
The
Paris Historic District has been listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
since 2004, and also constitutes the northern portion of the larger
Crooked Run Valley Rural Historic District. Half the town's historic structures date from between 1810 and 1850 (including three log buildings dating from the 1820s and seven more frame buildings from the 1830s), with seven from the Reconstruction period after the American Civil War.
Nearby attractions

Paris is just north of
Sky Meadows State Park and a ten-minute drive from the Thompson Wildlife Management Area. The
Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail, also called the A.T., is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.Gailey, Chris (2006)"Appalachian Tra ...
passes through both of these public recreation areas. The village is in Hunt Country and celebrated its 200th anniversary on Dec. 28, 2010. A five-minute drive west on Route 50 is the
Shenandoah River
The Shenandoah River is the principal tributary of the Potomac River, long with two River fork, forks approximately long each,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August ...
, just on the other side of the mountain, where there is a boat landing. The peak of the Blue Ridge overlooking Paris is called
Ashby Gap. The view looking east from the gap has been deemed worthy of a "Scenic Easement," intended to keep this view clear and open for future generations to enjoy.
Demographics
Paris first appeared as a
census designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
in the
2020 U.S. Census.
References
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Fauquier County, Virginia
Unincorporated communities in Virginia