Woodstock is a town in and the county seat of Shenandoah County, Virginia, United States. As of the 2020 census, Woodstock had a population of 5,807. Woodstock comprises 3.2 square miles of incorporated area of the town and is located along the "Seven Bends" of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. While some tourism references list Woodstock as the fourth oldest town in Virginia, the area was sparsely settled and perhaps platted in 1752 or shortly thereafter, but the town was actually established by charter in 1761. While there are a number of Virginia towns closer to the eastern seaboard that claim earlier founding dates, Woodstock was one of the first towns west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Massanutten Military Academy is located in Woodstock, as is the former location of the Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority's national headquarters. Woodstock is also home to the River Bandits of the Valley Baseball League, Shenandoah County Public Schools central campus, and the Shenandoah County Fairgrounds. History The Town of Woodstock was established by charter in March 1761 as a part of what was then Frederick County. It was originally formed from a land grant from Lord Fairfax, and founded as Muellerstadt (Miller Town) in 1752 by founder Jacob Muller (or "Mueller"). The town's charter was sponsored by George Washington in Virginia's House of Burgesses. Woodstock has been the County Seat of Shenandoah County since Shenandoah County's formation in 1772.
Colonial era The Shenandoah Valley region surrounding Woodstock was settled by Pennsylvania Germans who migrated south down the natural route of the Shenandoah Valley in the mid-18th century. The majority of these German settlers tended small farms that grew crops other than tobacco, were not slaveholders, and had Protestant faiths different from the established Anglican Church in Virginia, which differed from the English society that was prevalent on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The Senedo people lived in the Shenandoah Valley around Woodstock, but they disappeared as a tribe prior to European settlement, possibly from attack by the Catawba people to the south. By the time the German settlers arrived, few Native Americans lived in the Shenandoah Valley. Several later tribes hunted in the valley, among them the Shawnee, Occoneechee, Monocans and Piscataways and the powerful Iroquois Confederation, so while not inhabiting the area Indians were likely not an uncommon sight. The seven bends have locations associated with Indian mounds dating back to the Late Woodland Period (AD 900–1650) in the area of the river between Woodstock and Strasburg, Virginia. After 250 years of plowing by settlers, the mounds have largely disappeared from sight, though traces of them have been detected with aerial photography.
Relations between Indians and settlers were friendly. In the 1750s, settlers began to sense trouble when Indians moved further west, over the Allegheny Mountains, where they were under influence of the French. During the French and Indian War, the French encouraged Indian raiding parties against so-called "English settlers" though most settlers in the Woodstock area were likely peaceable Germans. In the 1760s, there was constant danger of Indian raids, with some atrocities and brutality. The last Indian raid in the area occurred in 1766, three years after the formal end of the French and Indian War, about two miles south of Woodstock.
Route 11, which runs through Woodstock, was originally an Indian trail that served as a route between the Catawba in the south and the Lengape in the north, which were warring rivals. This came to be known as the Indian Road and was the main route for settlement and travel through the Shenandoah Valley. With many improvements, Route 11 has largely followed this route, which was later called the Great Wagon Road and then the Valley Pike. Jacob Muller apparently used this old trail in laying out the plans for the main street of what would become Woodstock. Muellerstadt was the early name for Woodstock.
Establishment George Washington was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses representing Frederick County, Virginia from 1758 to 1765 which included the Woodstock area until 1772. The new village of Woodstock was established by law in 1761. Washington sponsored the act, and named the town Woodstock at that time. George Washington also named Shenandoah Valley, the Shenandoah River, and Shenandoah County. He named these places after the Christian Oneida chief John Skenandoa who helped Americans survive during the American Revolution including at Valley Forge.
The Town of Woodstock's website notes that it was established by charter in March of 1761 as a part of what was then Frederick County. The town was originally formed by a land grant from Lord Fairfax, and named after its founder, Jacob Miller as Muellerstadt (Miller Town) in 1752. It was renamed Woodstock when the town's charter was sponsored by George Washington in Virginia's House of Burgesses. The Town of Woodstock has been the County Seat of Shenandoah County since the County's formation in 1772.
The act of the General Assembly gave full credit to Jacob Muller for initiating the idea. Muller came from Germany in 1749, and had initially settled in Pennsylvania. By 1752, he obtained 400 acres from Lord Fairfax for the area that eventually was included in the town limits of Woodstock. Muller settled in Narrow Passage near Woodstock, and in the next few years his holdings grew to something between 1200 and 2000 acres, and he proceeded to lay out a plan for the town, Mullerstadt. A few white settlers had preceded Muller, as the 1761 act establishing the town noted "several persons are now living there." It is realistic to assume this meant a scattering of log buildings. However, Muller's town plan was that referred to in the 1761 General Assembly act that established Woodstock.
There is no clear reason why the town's name was changed to Woodstock, though theories include it being renamed by Washington or perhaps for a wood stockade used by the community as shelter from Indian raids.
Jacob Muller's town continued for many years to be known as Millerstown, or to German language residents as Muellerstadt. During the years following the establishment of the town, Muller held a big land sale in which 40 parcels he plotted were purchased. Muller died in 1766, just four years after his land sales. Andrew Brewbaker, his son-in-law, became proprietor of his grant, supported by a board of trustees appointed by the General Assembly to govern the new town. This form of government continued until 1795, when the town was authorized to hold elections. In 1761, the town's appointed trustees left no records, so early history of Woodstock as a town cannot be determined with accuracy. There was also no local newspaper until 1817.
Revolutionary Era In 1772, Woodstock became the county seat of Dunmore County, which was renamed Shenandoah County in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War, shedding the name of the controversial last royal governor of Virginia. Being named the county seat had significant impact for the development of the town. As a county seat, Woodstock necessitated the building of a courthouse and jail. By 1774, the county had erected a permanent courthouse. That original courthouse was replaced in 1795 with a limestone building designed by Thomas Jefferson, using native limestone. It was enlarged in 1871 and 1886. The Shenandoah County Courthouse, located on Main Street, is the oldest courthouse still in use west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Peter Muhlenberg
John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, a native of Pennsylvania who was formerly a soldier in the British Army and German dragoons, accepted a call to become pastor to a Woodstock congregation in 1771. After theological training, he served both Lutherans and Episcopalians for four years in a wide-ranging pastorate in the Shenandoah Valley. During this time, he was drawn to in politics, serving in the House of Burgesses in 1774 and as a delegate to the First Virginia Convention. Muhlenberg became famous for his impassioned speeches in support of the American Revolutionary cause, helping to raise a regiment in the Shenandoah Valley among its German and Scots-Irish frontier population. He led the 8th Virginia Regiment, as its Colonel in the Continental Army.
At the conclusion of his fiery farewell sermon in Woodstock on January 21, 1776, Muhlenberg famously threw off his clerical robes to reveal an officer's uniform beneath and proclaimed, according to later reports, "in the language of Holy Writ there is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come." Muhlenberg went on to be promoted to a general in the Continental Army and led units in many battles, from the Battle of Brandywine to the Battle of Yorktown. Upon the end of the war in 1783, he did not return to live in Woodstock, but instead returned to his native Pennsylvania as a war hero, served in elected capacities and then was elected to the First Continental Congress (1788-1789) and several successive Congresses. Elected to the United States Senate in 1801, he resigned to return to a revenue post in Philadelphia, where he died on October 1, 1807. His statue in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection was submitted by Pennsylvania in 1889, and Muhlenberg remains revered in Woodstock for his fiery sermon and the unit he raised and inspired to fight for the nation's independence.
The frontier-recruited 8th Virginia Regiment was drawn from Augusta, Berkeley, Culpeper, Dunmore (Shenandoah), Fincastle, and Frederick Counties in the Shenandoah Valley. It was also drawn from the districts of Hampshire County and West Augusta, which are in present-day West Virginia, and elsewhere along the Virginia frontier, which stretched from Kentucky to Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh, PA). Two of the ten companies were raised from the Dunmore County area of Woodstock. It was led by Muhlenberg, Colonel of the regiment and Abraham Bowman, Lt. Colonel, both from Woodstock. The 8th Virginia was called "The German Regiment" though it also contained substantial numbers of Scots-Irish. Frequently separated and detached to other units, the men of this tough, frontier-bred regiment served with distinction in many theaters of the war: White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Short Hills, Cooch's Bridge, Brandywine, Saratoga, Germantown and Charleston. They suffered the hardships at Valley Forge, and were afterwards mustered out of service, with those who reenlisted merging into other Virginia units.
Railroads
The commercial importance of Woodstock was enhanced by the coming of the railroad, and the railroad had significant impact upon the Woodstock's development. The first railroad south of Strasburg was the Manassas Gap Railroad. On March 2, 1859, the line was extended to Mount Jackson. The Civil War interrupted the work however, and the line remained a long spur from Strasburg, with Mount Jackson as the terminus. In 1865 the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) acquired and reconstructed the line after extensive damage during the Civil War, merging it with the Orange & Alexandria to form the Orange, Alexandria and Manassas Railroad. They then extended the line to Harrisonburg in 1868. In 1872, the B&O formed a separate subsidiary railroad on the line known as the Strasburg & Harrisonburg RR (S&H RR). In 1873 the B&O RR leased and operated the S&H RR between Strasburg and Harrisonburg. But the B&O encountered financial difficulties and sold the S&H railroad subsidiary to the Southern Railway in 1896.