Hillsboro 's History, continued

About the same time, another grist mill was being constructed upstream at the western edge of town by John Hough, who built a substantial log mill known as “the Gap Mills” n 150 acres which he had obtained from William Fairfax in 1759. In 1797he willed his son, Mahlon, one of Hillsboro’s original trustees, “mills and land in the Gap.” At that time, the present Hillsboro-Purcellville Road was known as “the road to Mahlon Hough’s mill.”

While he was owner of the mill, Mahlon Hough lived in the fine stone house across the road from it. In the late 1700s, Mahlon began selling off much of the original 150 acres in the Gap in small lots, and many of the stone houses built on those Hillsboro lots are still standing. Mahlon Hough had very little property remaining by the time he sold the mill and house to David Janney in 1814. The Janneys operated the mill until 1837, when the original log mill was either destroyed or in need of repairs, for that year James and Quill Janney built on the same site a large stone mill.

This mill was famed for its fine flour and meal, and did a prosperous business in the early days with the local farmers. Wheat was ground at the mill and carried to Alexandria in wagons drawn by six-horse teams. On their return, farmers often brought back loads of gypsum rock that had been used as ballast on vessels coming into Alexandria, which was ground at the mill into plaster to be broadcast on the fields, an example of the early application of lime.

Still further upstream stood a grist mill build by E.D. Potts in 1842, the ruins of which can still be seen. Nearby are the remains of the millers’ stone house. Nathan Neer, who owned much land in the neighborhood, purchased it in 1848 for $4,165 and it was operating until burned by Union soldiers un the Civil War, Locally, it was known for many years as the “Old Burnt Mill.”

Although no major battles were fought near Hillsboro, the war left its imprint on the town as forcefully as on any in the county. John Brown’s raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry in 1859 was a severe shock to all of Loudoun, a blow against the forces which governed an orderly society. The fear and excitement it raised in nearby Hillsboro led to the organization of the Hillsborough Border Guards

In November 1864, an order from the Union forces was carried out to “consume and destroy all forage and subsistence burn all barns and mills and their contents, and drive off all stock in the region” was carried out. Only houses were to be spared. The brigade carrying out the order passed through Hillsboro, burning many of the mills and farms there.

Hillsboro never quite regained the momentum and prosperity it had enjoyed in the years before the way. By the last decades of the 19th century, the railroad was slowly building from Hamilton, through Purcellville and Round Hill to Bluemont, cutting Hillsboro off from the main trade route and diverting the summer visitors who came to Loudoun to escape the heat of Washington. The town’s location in the northwestern corner of the county, plus roads which were neglected until the wide use of the automobile in the 1930s, further isolated Hillsboro. It became a close-knit region, largely dependent on it’s own resources. This very isolation and lack of economic growth, which drove many of the young people to find work in more prosperous areas, saved the beauty of Hillsboro for the future.

In 2004, Hillsboro was the smallest incorporated town in the state of Virginia, though it is located in the fastest growing county in the United States.