LOCATION: 105 North Main Street, Culpeper

This is the site if the first (1750-1808) and second (1809-1870) courthouses of Culpeper County, thought to be laid out by Culpeper County’s first surveyor, George Washington, in 1749.  At the first courthouse two important events occurred.  On October 31, 1765, a protest of the Stamp Act by the Culpeper Court Justices challenged English actions.  The most important protest on July 7, 1774 produced the Culpeper County Resolves.  A committee of Culpeper County freeholders drafted the Culpeper Resolves in response to Parliament’s recently passed Coercive Acts and Governor Dunmore’s closure of Virginia’s House of Burgesses.  The Culpeper Resolves repudiated the actions of Parliament and Dunmore and pledged “at all times, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, oppose any act imposing such taxes or duties, unless we are legally represented.”  Culpeper was one of Virginia’s earliest counties to publish resolves in 1774.

Marker installed July 9, 2024

Reference Material

Gutowski, Andrew, and Jim Bish.  “A Summary of Events in Culpeper Before 1776.”

An issue of the Glouchester Journal bearing a tax stamp.

The Culpeper Resolves, 1774

Culpeper’s second courthouse building in 1862 seen looking east towards Main Street from West Davis Street.  Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.