While it seems it has multiple names, the strongest one seems to be the Carolina Road. There is even a Carolina Road historical marker 7.3 miles south of here along Route 15. At this location the Carolina Road exist along the edge of parkland and is now used as a hiking trail (since 2020). Near the northern end of the trail (posted coordinates) is a marker (text below) that gives a thorough history of this former route that goes beyond the Carolina road.
Marker Text:
The trail before you has had many names and descriptions in the hundreds of years it's been in use. Its history is much longer than its 250 miles in Virginia might suggest. The original northern terminus in Virginia lay at Conoy Island in the Potomac River (actually part of Maryland), and to the south it ends in Occaneechie State Park near the North Carolina border. What happened along this route is a story that's still being written.
The ground on which you stand once felt the footfalls of Susquehannock trading with other American Indians in the Carolinas, and later Iroquois traveling the path south before winter set in, and north before summer. Recorded history of the trail begins with the Virginia Act of 1662, which notes "plain paths" including this one just east of the foothills of the Catoctin and Bull Run Mountains.
In the 1722 Treaty of Albany, the Iroquois agreed never again to migrate east of the Blue Ridge, which kept them from using this old path, and white travelers began to use it. Thomas, 6th Lord Fairfax, sole proprietor of the lands around this plain path, started issuing grants along here in 1727. Good soil and farmland along this route made the land valuable and desirable.
It wasn't long before our path became known as the Carolina Road, but it earned a nickname fairly quickly as well - Rogues' Road. Horse and cattle thieves plied their trade here, causing havoc and making travel risky. Imagine an 18th-century traveler heading south warily watching the sun sink below the Bull Run Mountains to the west, eager to find shelter for the night lest becoming prey to highwaymen. As a result, the Virginia Assembly enacted a law in 1742 requiring all travelers on the Carolina Road engaged in driving livestock to show a bill of sale on demand to any justice of the peace.
As travel on the Carolina Road increased during the 18th century, common fare taverns, or ordinaries, sprang up every 10-20 miles, a necessity due to poor road conditions and the slow mode of horse, wagon and foot travel. One of the first taverns in Loudoun County along the Carolina Road was West's Ordinary. Established by William West before 1748, it was located just one mile south of here.
By 1770, our road makes its first appearance on a map, and by the turn of the 19th century, "Old" is added to its name. It appears on a statewide map for the first time in 1827, and has prominent labeling on the 1853 Yardley Taylor map of Loudoun County. Large plantations located along the Old Carolina Road would help to ensure its future throughout the 19th century.
Both Union and Confederate armies marched along the Old Carolina Road during the Civil War. During the July 6, 1864 engagement between Mosby's Rangers and Federal cavalry at Mt. Zion Church, men of the 2nd Massachusetts and 15th New York cavalries fled south on this roadbed pursued by rebel-yelling Rangers.
In the late 1930s, a New Deal WPA project created the modern U.S. Route 15 just to the west, replacing the Carolina Road. Still, pieces of it remain to be used as rural byways. This section, however was abandoned to local farm use. It is now maintained by the Mount Zion Cemetery of Aldie, Inc., the Piedmont Environmental Council, and NOVA parks.
Today's Old Carolina Road is a footpath once more. Walk down this ancient track of road with your senses keen for many memories as you connect with the land, nature, and the past.