User:Mlemon1/sandbox

19th Century
By the early 1800s, New London began to fade as an independent township due to the loss of the county seat. Locals of both Bedford County and Campbell County created a petition for a new county to be created in 1813 with New London at its center, but the movement could not gain traction with the local government and ultimately failed. Though it lost the court seat, New London's position next to a crossroad allowed it to have many visitors and even some prominent guests. In April 1816, General Andrew Jackson stayed in the town and almost had a duel in a New London tavern as he was passing through the area. Around 1820, the Salem-Lynchburg Turnpike was macadamized using flint which eased traveling to and from New London and helped to boost trade until railroads were introduced to the city of Lynchburg, VA, in 1848. In 1864, during the Civil War, the Union Army of West Virginia also went through the town, via the turnpike, traveling to what would be the Battle of Lynchburg and then moving through it again during their retreat.

Education
In the early 19th century, New London was the location of at least two schools, the New London Academy and the Roland Academy for girls. New London Academy was a prominent secondary educational institution throughout the 19th century. In the first half of the 19th century, the Academy offered a range of courses, and students would receive a different diploma for any subject completed. New London Academy was so renowned a school that Francis Eppes attended the academy at the insisting of his grandfather,Thomas Jefferson and during the Civil War it managed to remain operating. In its early years, the academy was home to a brick Episcopal meeting house located on the grounds whose ministers were often the principals of the school. This religious association faded later in its history, starting with the moving of the Academy Church in 1856 to another location when a crack appeared on the wall and the original brick building was condemned and torn down in 1855. This separation of the church from the academy lead to its becoming a public school in 1870 and a coeducational school in 1879. New London also hosted to the Roland Academy for girls between 1812 and 1822 in the Mead's Tavern structure. Roland was a finishing school run by Samuel T. Miller and his wife and may have held up to forty students at any time, but school was discontinued in 1822 when Samuel Miller left to start another coeducational school in a different area.

Bedford Springs
In 1859, the Echols family started selling Alum mass for medicinal purposes using minerals from the local quarries. The business was not very successful at first. The business began to see success and prosperity when the Echols family created a well in an Alum quarry and began selling the water. Echols called the well The Bedford Alum and Iodine Spring, and passed it off as a mineral spring where people could be cured of everything from scrofula, ring-worm, and dysmenonrrhea. The water was so popular that in 1876, Davis and Maben purchased a large property near the spring and constructed a large health resort which opened in 1878. Due to the springs popularity and proximity to the town New London prospered, becoming a spa town and changing its name to Bedford Springs in the late 1870s.

JW1996 (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

African American History
NEW LONDON CONTENT ENDS HERE dddonald (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Possible sources for review:

William Mead: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1915231

Monacan People: https://www.monacannation.com/our-history.html

* New London Diamond:http://www.jstor.org/stable/24962265

Weapons Depot: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4247826"* needs further investigating"