Raphine 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 hav ...

Rockbridge County Rockbridge County is a county in the Shenandoah Valley on the western edge of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 22,650. Its county seat is the city of Lexington. Rockbridge County completely surrounds the i ...

in the

Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Rid ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

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

History

The name "Raphine" was chosen in honor of

James Edward Allen Gibbs James Edward Allen Gibbs (1829–1902) was a farmer, inventor, and businessman from Rockbridge County in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. On June 2, 1857, he was awarded a patent for the first twisted chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine u ...

(1829-1902), a local farmer who patented a novel single-thread chain-stitch

sewing machine A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with Thread (yarn), thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. ...

on June 2, 1857. Gibbs had named his home in the area ("Raphine Hall"), as well as the new railroad station ("Raphine"), after the ancient Greek "rhaphis", meaning "needle.". In partnership with James Willcox, Gibbs formed the Willcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Company. Willcox & Gibbs commercial sewing machines are still made and used in the 21st century. Nearby, the McCormick family farm, Walnut Grove, was the home of

Cyrus McCormick Cyrus Hall McCormick (February 15, 1809 – May 13, 1884) was an American inventor and businessman who founded the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which later became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902. Originally from the ...

(1809-1884). He became famous as the inventor of the mechanical

reaper A reaper is a farm implement or person that reaps (cuts and often also gathers) crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were Gallic reapers that were used in Rom ...

in 1831. He moved to

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1847, and was the founder, with his brother Leander, of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company which became part of International Harvester Corporation in 1902. The McCormick farm became a test farm for

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also has educational facilities in six reg ...

(better known as "Virginia Tech"). In addition to Walnut Grove, the Kennedy-Lunsford Farm and Kennedy-Wade Mill are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

Publications

* ''The Rockbridge Advocate''''The Rockbridge Advocate''
/ref> (monthly magazine) * ''The News-Gazette'' (weekly newspaper) * ''Rockbridge Weekly'' (weekly newspaper)

References

Unincorporated communities in Rockbridge County, Virginia Unincorporated communities in Virginia {{RockbridgeCountyVA-geo-stub