George Washington’s Downtown Culpeper, Virginia walking tour

Pepperberries building at the location of the first and second courthouse. It was later described as a “High and Pleasant Situation.” Although no evidence survives, it is assumed that the First County Surveyor George Washington laid out the public buildings for the county in July 1749 as a surveyor’s normal activity.

Location of the George Washington mural on the north side of the Culver building.

Tradition claims that George Washington stayed at this site in a tenet house of Robert Coleman while plating out the Courthouse area in 1749. 215 N Main/later around the corner on Spencer Street.

Location of the home of Roger Dixon, first Culpeper Clerk and cousin to George Washington. Some believe that Col. John Jameson and Culpeper County Clerk, after the death of Roger Dixon, lived in the Roger Dixon home as Jameson purchased it. Others believe that the John Jameson home where Jameson primarily lived, located at 410 S. Main St., where the Shenandoah Florist is now located and that Jameson leased out the Dixon home located at 306 N West Street.

Yowell Meadow Park. Revolutionary War Culpeper Minute Brigade muster site.

Location of the home of Col. John Jameson, who while serving under General George Washington exposed Benedict Arnold as a Traitor.

The site for the Robert Coleman home and later that of his son-in-law, Gen. Edward Stevens. The original home was the location of the first Culpeper Court proceedings. Washington would have worked closely with Coleman and his brother-in-law Culpeper Court Justice, Major Philip Clayton in establishing the courthouse. In the early 1740s Robert Coleman purchased from the Spotswood estate 270 acres on the south side of Mountain Run and 15 acres lying opposite to it on the north side of the run, whereon Robert Coleman now lives. The 255 acres bounded as per plat and the 15 acres bounded by the lands of Philip Clayton, John Parks and William Williams. It was on this land that lay on the south side of Mountain Run where the Culpeper Courthouse was established in 1749, probably laid out by George Washington, and the Fairfax (Later Culpeper) townsite was laid out in 1759.

Near the intersection of Virginia Avenue and Catalpa Court was the Philip Clayton homesite. Major Philip Clayton came to Culpeper from New Kent through Essex where he moved into the area with his related family of the Pendleton and Coleman families. He brought with him from Essex County the first Catalpa Tree seen in these parts and he named his plantation such. He owned over 500 acres on the northwest side of Mountain Run, where he developed Clayton’s Mill. His land bordered that of Robert Spotswood, and his brother-in-law’s, Robert Coleman and Nathaniel Pendleton. By 1749, he was a Vestry member and Culpeper Court Justice when Culpeper was separated from Orange County in 1749. He then became the deputy Culpeper County clerk, doing all the duties of the office for Roger Dixon, Clerk of Culpeper, who lived in the lower country, at Fredericksburg. He married Ann, sister of Robert Coleman, on whose land the courthouse was built. He had one son, Samuel (his successor in the vestry), who married his cousin Ann Coleman, and among their children were Lt. Philip Clayton the second, an officer of the Revolution. Philip Sr. rose to the rank of Major in the Culpeper militia and he usually hosted the muster and drill for the militia on his property as it was a central location. He hosted the first encampment of the Culpeper Minutemen in 1775 on his “old Clayton farm.”