Geography | Infrastructure | Agriculture | Slavery | Politics | Religion
This map locates Franklin and Augusta counties within the Shenandoah Valley, 200 miles from one another. While similar in their geography and agriculture, the counties were separated by slavery.
This map of Augusta details the roads, railroads, and smaller communities that connected through Staunton to each other.
This lithograph of Staunton in the late 1850s offers a detailed look at the small city, allowing the user to click on twenty-two houses and buildings in 1857 Staunton and see them in close-up photographs.
This map of Augusta County shows the elevation of the county. Only a handful of residences occupied the higher elevations in the county.
This map of Augusta County shows the hydrology of the county. Thousands of miles of streams and rivers coursed through the county and residents settled close to these water sources.
This map of Augusta County shows the densely built transportation infrastructure of railroads, major roads, minor roads, and footpaths. Residences clustered tightly and uniformly along major and minor roads in the county. Only a handful of residents lived off of the road network.
This map of Augusta County shows the towns in Augusta with a one mile buffer. No resident of Augusta lived more than 5.5 miles from a town or village.
This close-up of Augusta County's second largest town, Waynesborough, (population 457) shows the clustered, extensive development of Augusta's towns.
This close-up view of Lebanon White Sulpher Springs in Augusta County shows the community development along roads and geographic features.
This close-up view of Parnassas shows the loose development of Augusta's small villages.
This map of Augusta County shows the soil types in the county. Augusta residents lived in every soil type in the county, but they concentrated their development in the richest soil areas. A relatively small number of residents inhabited soils unsuitable for agriculture. Where they did, they often located on the border of soil types, as close to better soils as possible.
This map of Augusta County shows the agricultural production in the county in each voting precinct. The largest plantations in the county correspond to the areas of highest wheat production--the precincts of New Hope, Mt. Sidney, Fishersville, and Stuart's Draft.
This map shows the distribution of farm values throughout the county. Farm values fluctuated throughout Augusta, with no one area dominated by the wealthy or poor.
This map presents the residences in Augusta County matched to the slaveowners census schedule and shows the uniform distribution of slavery across space in the county. The map also shows the widespread spatial distribution of slaveholders with 6-10 and 11-20 slaves. Nearly every part of the county had large and small slaveholders. The map also shows the extent of slavery and its proximity to nonslaveholders.
This map shows the concentration of slaves on particular plantations. While slaveholders lived throughout the county with widely varying numbers of slaves per plantation, few planters owned more than 20 slaves.
This map shows where local political party leaders (as identified in the newspapers) resided in Augusta County. While both Whigs and Democrats lived throughout the county, Whigs outnumbered Democrats in Augusta and were particularly well-represented in the county seat of Staunton.
This map of Augusta County, Virginia shows the presidential vote of 1860 by precinct. Bell's overwhelming victory overshadows subtle electoral patterns in the Douglas-Breckinridge-Bell split. The Democratic candidates together captured significant votes in Staunton and in the eastern and northern parts of the county, the broad middle part of the Valley just east of Staunton. These places included some of the largest farms and plantations.
This map shows the overwhelming victory of Union over secession candidates in each precinct of Augusta in the February 1861 election for secession convention delegates. A slightly higher percentage in Staunton voted for secession candidates, but the overall Unionist pattern held true for the entire county.
This map shows the distribution of churches by each electoral district. Users may select larger versions of each district, showing roads and church locations.
This map shows the distribution of churches in Staunton laid out on a detailed city grid.
This map of Augusta County shows the density of churches and schools in the county. The circles indicate a 1 mile radius around each institution. No residence in Augusta was more than 5.5 miles from a school or church.
Church denominations in Augusta were primarily Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian. The Hotchkiss map included African churches in Staunton formed after the Civil War. Nearly all other churches on the map were formed before the war. The diversity and locations of denominations in Augusta were also present at the precinct level. New Hope Precinct, for example, one of the largest and most wealthy and important precincts, included churches from all of the major denominations.
