Goose Creek Historic District

Goose Creek Historic District covers roughly 8,650 acres of farmland in central Loudoun County, Virginia, between Hogback Mountain and Black Oak Ridge. The village of Lincoln is its hub. English Quakers began settling the area in the 1730s, and it became the largest concentration of Quaker settlers in the state. They favored wheat and other grains on small farms worked by free labor, and many farms still follow the boundaries of 18th-century land patents. The district holds farmhouses, barns, meetinghouses, churches and schools in stone, brick, log and frame. About forty-four stone buildings, including seven barns and three churches, form the largest concentration of stone architecture in the county. Narrow, winding dirt roads laid out in the 18th century are largely unchanged. Quaker and Baptist churches, Lincoln's black churches of the 1880s, and an 1815 schoolhouse show the community's religious and educational life. A local preservation ordinance now protects the farmland and its scenery.