Turnpike and to my left is Plaster ’ s Field , which every September becomes a field of cars bringing people to the renowned Bluemont Fair . The 51st Bluemont Fair was postponed to 2021 because of the pandemic . The Fair draws thousands of visitors who delight in its old-fashioned country fair atmosphere : music , food , pony rides , artisanal crafts , children ’ s games , and much more .
Nearby , Great Country Farms , the Bluemont Vineyard , and Dirt Farm Brewery are popular destinations , particularly on weekends . The idea of reverting to a Turnpike toll road to fill village coffers briefly crosses my mind .
Further along the Turnpike , heading south towards Philomont , stone walls and post and rail fences frame wide stretches of open pastures . Miles and miles of unpaved roads branch out deeper into the area surrounding Bluemont . Unchanged over the centuries , some brought farmer ’ s crops to mills , while others traced Indian hunting trails .
Life now in Bluemont has come full circle . The boom and bust of the resort era has been replaced by steadier commerce , mostly agriculturally based : vineyards , cideries , and craft breweries alongside thriving equestrian and cattle businesses . The challenge for Bluemont will be to retain its sweetness and pastoral views well into the 21 st century and beyond .
Peter Weeks lives on the Blue Ridge overlooking Bluemont . He is President of the Bluemont Citizens Association and President of Friends of the Blue Ridge Mountains . unison : Claiming Its Heritage
By mitch diamond
Unison , the southernmost of Loudoun ’ s Quaker villages , is located in southwestern Loudoun , between the towns of Middleburg and Round Hill . The village is surrounded by open fields , woods , horse and cattle farms and historic farm houses with views of the Blue Ridge visible from its tree-lined unpaved roads .
The village was settled in about 1740 by Quakers who had migrated down from Pennsylvania , via Maryland and across the Potomac to the fertile farmlands of Northern Virginia . In the late 18th and early 19th centuries , after the Revolutionary War , the village became a local center for Methodists . Unison ( then called Union ) grew rapidly as the County ’ s agricultural economy blossomed . In 1813 the village of Union was officially established by the General Assembly of Virginia , and in 1817 it changed its name to Unison as another Virginia village called Union had a prior claim .
Unison became an important center in its area of Loudoun County with schools , hotels , taverns , homes and numerous businesses and a fine two-story brick Methodist church built in 1832 by enslaved workers under the direction of William Benton , Loudoun ’ s foremost architect .
In 1862 , in the second year of the Civil War , Union and Confederate troops fought through the streets of the village as the huge Federal Army of the Potomac tried to cut off the Army of Northern Virginia from its sources of supply in Richmond after the terrible battle at Antietam . Loudoun ’ s church became a Federal field hospital while a home across the road served the Confederate wounded .
Following the war , the village entered a long period of quiet stability . Through the middle of the 20th century , Unison maintained itself as a viable village with its own churches , general store , a famous saddle shop , and even a baseball team that played in the Loudoun baseball leagues . But , by the 1980s the town was in decline , too far away from the new highways that now carried the bulk of Loudoun ’ s commerce and population .
By the 1990s the town had become little more than a sleepy residential enclave with only 50 permanent residents and 14 or so houses . The last retail enterprise , The Unison Store , a general store that had been in continuous operation since 1880 , closed in August 1996 .
In 2001 a local group of residents formed a 501 ( c ) 3 nonprofit group , incorporated as “ The Unison Preservation Society ,” with their stated goal to help protect
16 wander I spring • Summer 2021