History

Willisville grew up northwest of Middleburg on Welbourne Road, an old dirt lane that once marked a boundary between two Fairfax land grants. African Americans, both enslaved and free, were living here before the Civil War, and the village took firmer shape during Reconstruction as freed people from around Middleburg and Upperville bought small lots from white landowners. It is named for Henson Willis, a freedman who bought three acres here soon after the war.

In 1868 residents sought help from the Freedmen’s Bureau office in Middleburg, bought an acre and built a schoolhouse that doubled as a church on Sundays. That building later burned, and the present stone chapel went up in 1924, with land and a design donated by artist Mary D. Neville. A schoolhouse from 1921 and a small store from the early 1920s still stand, along with a cluster of log, stone and frame houses built by freedmen and their families.

After a two-year effort by residents and a regional heritage association, Willisville was listed in late 2019 on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register, the first Loudoun village with African American roots to be so honored. A state historical marker followed in 2021.