Several prominent area settlers and their descendants are buried nearby. Colonel William Callaway, in 1755 one of the first two members of the Virginia House of Burgesses from Bedford County, donated the hundred acres of land on which the town of New London was built. His son Colonel James Callaway served as county lieutenant, commander in chief of the Bedford County militia, during the Revolutionary War. James Callaway's son-in-law James Steptoe was a close personal friend of Thomas Jefferson and served for 54 years as the first clerk of Bedford County. Steptoe's home, Federal Hill, stands nearby.