Battling to Keep Civil War Site's Peaceful Aura

In the early 1990s, the Walt Disney Co. floated the idea of creating a historical theme park in western Prince William County.

Just three miles away, residents of Buckland were amused, for their tiny village, incorporated in 1798, already represented a well-preserved time capsule of life during the 18th and 19th centuries. And that was before the real research began.

At first glance, Buckland is just a cozy creekside village bisected by four lanes of continuous traffic along Route 29. And yet, within its houses, beneath its landscape and among its handwritten records, residents and archaeological experts are using modern technology and old-fashioned sleuthing to discover details about the lives of Native Americans, merchants, craftsmen, founding fathers, freed slaves and Civil War soldiers.

Buckland faded from prominence after the Civil War, leaving much of the original 48-lot town intact. Through primary sources, a battlefield and 13 buildings important in the town's early history have been documented. Nearly two dozen archaeological sites, including a distillery, a mill and the home sites of several free blacks, have been identified.

In 2004, residents formed the Buckland Preservation Society. They are now sacrificing future real estate profits by placing their properties in conservation easements designed to permanently protect them from development.

After the Revolutionary War, Buckland's location along the banks of Broad Run helped it become a vibrant community with mills, shops and a quarry.

By the 1820s, Buckland was a thriving turnpike-era town. The Fauquier-Alexandria pike was soon extended to Warrenton, using a crushed-stone paving process designed to shed water quickly -- Virginia's first macadamized road, a precursor to tarmac. (Archeological work to examine a 70-yard exposed segment of that roadbed is set to start this summer. )

By 1835, Buckland's population was 180, including 50 blacks, some free. Their homes were mixed among those of their white neighbors. The Ned Distiller House, built in the early 1800s and named for the freed slave who built it, still stands on a rise overlooking Route 29.

During the Civil War, 12,000 cavalry and artillery troops faced each other across Broad Run. On Oct. 19, 1863, Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart staged a faked retreat, then ambushed Union troops in a pincer movement, causing them to flee five miles toward Warrenton. That rout became known as the Buckland Races.

Today's leaders of Buckland's preservation efforts are a varied lot who have taken on a task far from their minds when each first moved there.

More than three decades ago, Thomas Ashe Jr., a retired Maryland home builder, moved into the former Buckland Tavern, built in the early 1800s. "There's something about villages I've always liked," he said.

He was unaware of the layers of history yet to be discovered in the village. Newspaper accounts and Andrew Jackson's own writings show the tavern was one of his favorite haunts. He held a news conference there after vetoing the Bank Bill of 1832.