Chapman's Mill was built in 1742 by Jonathan and Nathaniel Chapman, a father/son partnership from an enterprising, well-connected colonial family. Enlarged in 1758, the mill became a prosperous gristmill that fostered the development of the Shenandoah Valley as a wheat and corn producing region for the next one hundred years.

Due to the mill's location between the Valley and the city of Alexandria, corn and wheat could be transported efficiently by wagon to the mill, ground into cornmeal and wheat, and then shipped from Alexandria to ever-expanding markets in Europe and South America. In 1759 Fauquier County was created from old Prince William County, and the related documents noted that the boundary between the two counties passed through the mill, as it does today. The prosperity of the mill was enhanced when, in 1852, the Manassas Gap Railroad was completed, passing beside the mill and reducing the travel time to Alexandria. In 1858 the Chapmans enlarged the mill, raising it to a total of seven stories and making it a model of agricultural technology.

By July of 1861 the Confederates had turned Chapman's Mill into a meat curing warehouse and distribution center. Herds of cattle and pigs were enclosed in large pens, and more than two million pounds of Confederate meat were stored on the site. Confederates, leaving after the First Battle of Manassas, burned the meat and the mill to keep them from the advancing troops. On August 28, 1862 Union General Ricketts was ordered to occupy Thoroughfare Gap to prevent Generals Lee and Longstreet from marching through the Gap and joining Confederate troops gathering for the Second Battle of Manassas. Historians say that if Ricketts had prevailed at the Battle of Thoroughfare Gap, which took place in and around the mill, the Second Battle of Manassas would never have taken place. During much of the Civil War, Col. John S. Mosby and his Raiders traversed Thoroughfare Gap as they sought to disrupt the movement of Union provisions to their armies in the South.

By 1876 the Beverley family had restored the ruins to a very successful milling operation and the mill took on their name. Chapman's Mill has ground cornmeal and flour for American troops during seven wars: The French and Indian, the Revolutionary, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I and World War II.

The mill operated until 1951.

On October 22, 1998 the mill was gutted by a fire that was determined to be arson. The remains of the mill are easily visible about 100 yards north of I-66 just 3 miles west of Haymarket, Virgina.

(Photos by Reggie Hall – Hallr@aol.com)