Hillsboro 's History
An interesting history of Hillsboro is written in the book: Hillsboro: Memories of a Mill Town. Below are excerpts from the book.

The first record of settlement in the Hillsboro area is a Fairfax County record showing that in 1746, David Potts leaved 866 acres on “KittockinRun from Catesby Cocke for five Shillings paid in Hand, with the Right to Purchase and an annual Rental of one Ear of Indian Corn.” The Quakers who settled in western Loudoun in the 1740s and 50s kept careful records and minutes of their monthly meetings, which were held at the home of David Potts.

David Potts died in 1768, and from 1770 until a meeting house was built, the Gap Meeting was held at the home of David Williams. In 1788, a substantial meeting house was built near the western end of town on two acres conveyed for the purpose of erecting a “Meeting House, Schools, Yard and Place of Burial.” The meeting house was in a sad state by 1812, and the citizens of Hillsboro agreed to make necessary repairs, including a new roof, if they could use it as a school house, which they did for many years. In its later stages of disrepair, before it was torn down and its stone used in construction of a nearby home, the old meeting house was known locally as “the Poor House.”

Although there were mills and houses in the Gap in the late 1700s, the town of Hillsboro (spelled Hillsborough until its 1880 incorporation) was not formally established until December 31, 1802 by an act passed by the Virginia General Assembly. The trustees of Hillsboro named in the act were Mahlon Hough, Samuel Purcell, Jr., Thomas Leslie, Josiah White, Jr., Edward Cunard, Mahlon Roach, and Thomas D. Stevens. By June 20, 1811, when Henry Griffin bought lot No. 12 on the town plat at auction for $88.50 paid to the trustees, he was required to build “a House thereon Twelve feet Square or equal thereto with a Stone or Brick Chimney to the same and a Shingle Roof on it within Four years of the Day of the Sale of the said lott.” Due to its favorable location on the Vestal’s Gap Road, the town grew quickly and in the early 1800s was one of the leading trade centers of western Loudoun, along with Snickerville (Bluemont) and Woodgrove, which has since disappeared. Much of Hillsboro’s activity was due to its mills, with as many as five operating at one time, all on Catoctin Creek or its nearby branches.

A mill and house in the Gap of the Short Hills are noted as early as 1758 on a plat of “Tayloe’s Kittocktin Lands.” It operated as a grist mill for many years, then was burned and rebuilt in the early 1800s. In 1850, it was converted into a woolen mill.