New London

New London, on the old stage road, was the first county seat of Bedford, and its first courthouse, built in 1755, stood until 1856. In 1781, British cavalryman Tarleton raided New London while seeking military stores. It became part of Campbell County in 1782, and an arsenal there was afterward removed to Harper’s Ferry. Patrick Henry made one of his most famous speeches at New London. There, in 1781, John Hook, a Tory, sued over two steers impressed for the American Army, and Henry, as opposing counsel, so vividly portrayed the Patriots’ sufferings in that critical year and their joy at Cornwallis’s surrender, and so ridiculed Hook, that the case was laughed out of court.

Virginia · United States