The burning and complete destruction of Buckingham County’s courthouse on February 25, 1869 brought a profound loss to Buckingham County, Virginia, destroying all deeds and public records kept there from the county’s founding in 1761 and wiping out the written heritage of its first 108 years, while also destroying one of only two courthouses designed by Thomas Jefferson. After Colonel Charles Yancey of Buckingham, serving on a commission to build a new courthouse, asked Jefferson in 1821 to draft a plan, a courthouse was built in 1822. In 2003 and 2004, the Longwood Archaeology Field School under Dr. Brian Bates investigated whether anything remained of that Jefferson courthouse on the grounds of the present courthouse, built in 1873, in order to compare the earlier design with the later building before renovation and expansion of the courthouse complex. Using correspondence between Jefferson and Yancey, other archival sources, a ground-penetrating radar survey by NAEVA Geophysics, Inc., and excavations around the west, east, and south sides of the courthouse, the project sought evidence of the 1822 courthouse, its dimensions, proposed wings or pavilions, and the layout of its portico. Archaeological work identified a shallow builder’s trench west of the present courthouse that matched Yancey’s July 4, 1822 description of a wing on each side measuring 16 feet square and attached by an 8-foot entry, indicating that the western wall of the 1873 courthouse stood in the same location as the western wall of the 1822 Jefferson courthouse, and another excavation unit confirmed that the 1873 courthouse was built on the remains of the Jefferson courthouse foundation.