18th century and
Victorian style to serve as both a schoolhouse and town hall, in 2001 it was adapted as the Haymarket Museum. Haymarket is built on land that used to be hunting grounds of the western
Iroquois nations, who came from the
New York and
Pennsylvania area around the
Great Lakes. They used hunting paths through the land until 1722, when they made a treaty with the colonies of Virginia and New York to move into the
Blue Ridge Mountain region. Due to the hunting paths, this location, and later the town, were given the nickname
The Crossroads. The town of Haymarket began to be developed and built after the
American Revolutionary War, formally founded in 1799 on the land of William Skinker. The
Virginia General Assembly gave Skinker the rights to lay out the town, which he drew to consist of 13 streets and 140 lots. Shortly after, a clerk's office and jail were constructed in 1801, as the town had been selected as the site of what is now a district court. The town owed its early development to business and trade associated with the regular court sessions.
19th century In 1807, the
Virginia General Assembly abolished the district court in favor of the circuit court system, which established a court at each county seat. Until 1830 the court house remained the focal point of the town, while serving multiple purposes. In 1830, the court house was converted into and deeded as an
Episcopal church; in 1833 it was
consecrated as St Paul's. During the
American Civil War, on November 4, 1862,
Union army troops invaded Haymarket and set the entire town on fire. Only four buildings survived: three small houses and St. Paul's Church. For the remainder of the war, Haymarket remained mostly uninhabited. A skirmish took place on October 19, 1863, involving the Second Brigade, Second Division, and Fifth Army Corps. Another skirmish took place in June 1863. They both involved Union encounters with the Confederate cavalry. Following
General Robert E. Lee's surrender, Haymarket began to recover. Slowly it regained its former prosperity and size. Haymarket was incorporated in 1882, the second town in
Prince William County to do so. The first mayor elected was Garrett Hulfish and the first councilmen elected were T.A. Smith, Charles Jordan, and William W. Meade. In May 1882 during the council's second meeting, the rudimentary ordinances were drafted and adopted. On March 19, 1892, Lee Heflin and Joseph Dye were
lynched in Haymarket. They had been convicted of the murder of a girl and sentenced to death, but the mob thought the legal system moved too slowly. The men were hanged from trees at the edge of woods; then the mob shot into their bodies.
The Washington Post said, "mob law...is a dangerous thing to encourage. There is too much of it already throughout the country, and it spreads like a contagion so long as public sentiment tacitly approves it." It was unusual that white men were lynched; in Virginia and the rest of the South, usually black men were victims of lynching. From 1882 to the present day, most of the buildings in central Haymarket have remained unchanged. The town borders
U.S Route 15. Growth has occurred outside the town. While no schools are located within the town, the larger area has five schools, and each are part of
Prince William County Public Schools.
20th century In the 1970s, during the construction of the
Interstate System, Haymarket was served by Exit 40 of
Interstate 66. Being connected to the interstate, during a period of growth in the
Northern Virginia region, has produced a population boom in the area of suburban development. In 1994,
The Walt Disney Company bought extensive amounts of land in Haymarket for a proposed
Disney's America theme park. Local resistance to the resort, because of perceived adverse effects on the Manassas Battlefield, resulted in the defeat of the park.
21st century William B. Snyder, a local businessman, convinced Disney to sell the property to him. Snyder, in turn, sold off most of the land to developers, except for the donated to the
National Capital Area Council of the
Boy Scouts of America. It used this land to develop
Camp Snyder. In addition to St. Paul's Church,
Evergreen,
Locust Bottom,
Mt. Atlas, and
Old Town Hall and School are listed on the
National Register of Historic Places. ==Geography==