As a historian as well as a cartographer , in 2003 Scheel also wrote a 900-page , five-volume history entitled Loudoun Discovered – Communities , Corners & Crossroads . The book series is accompanied by a map , of course !
Among other contributions to public knowledge in Loudoun , Scheel served on the county ’ s road naming commission in the late 1980s , and in that capacity he urged use of the historic names of several local roads whose original names he knew from his research but had become widely known only by their route numbers . Among those roads were route 7 ( historically Leesburg Pike ) and route 50 ( historically Little River Turnpike as far west as Aldie , and then Gap Turnpike ). Since then , the historic names of those two sections have been restored .
At the request of the Loudoun County Historical Society , Scheel wrote “ The Sioux Created a Landscape of Pastureland in Loudoun and Fauquier Counties ” for the Society ’ s website that quoted a 1608 book by Captain John Smith entitled General History of Virginia that reported a brief and friendly encounter between Smith and a Sioux Indian named Amoroleck . ( The Sioux tribe was known as the Mannahocks at that time .) After trading bows , arrows , tobacco and spices , the two groups parted on friendly terms .
Scheel ’ s Historical Society article also indicates that Thomas
Jefferson wrote in his famous Notes on the State of Virginia that the Sioux lived “ between Potowmac and Rappahonnoc .” where Loudoun and Fauquier Counties stand now .
Another Scheel contribution to local knowledge about Indian history in and around Loudoun is entitled “ Occasional Paper III — August 2019-February 2020 ,” for distribution to libraries , schools and interested parties . In that paper he credits the library at Catholic University in Washington D . C . with the compilation of a highly interesting and useful document entitled “ Bibliography of Virginia Indians .”
Another recent Scheel map centers on Short Hill Mountain ,