Willisville is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in southwestern

Loudoun County Loudoun County () is in the northern part of the Virginia, 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. The county seat is Leesburg, Virgi ...

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 ...

, about sixteen miles from the county seat, Leesburg. Willisville is located at the crossroads of Willisville, Millville, and Welbourne Roads. It is named after freed slave Heuson Willis, who bought a cabin and three acres of land shortly after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. The tight-knit predominantly

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

community of about a dozen houses and church became one of the last communities in wealthy Loudoun County without running water. The Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area Association campaigned to have Willisville designated an historic site. Historic Preservationist Jane Covington finalized the nomination application for the historic village to be listed in 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 ...

, and has submitted it to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VDHR) for review at their September 2019 quarterly meeting. Willisville was added to the National Register in 2019.''A Community Update on Willisville'', https://mosbyheritagearea.org/ newsletter, 23aug19

References

Unincorporated communities in Loudoun County, Virginia Washington metropolitan area Unincorporated communities in Virginia {{LoudounCountyVA-geo-stub