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In the meantime, enjoy a brief history of Louisa, VA.

A Brief History of Louisa, Virginia

The county of Louisa was formed from Hanover County in 1742. At the meeting of the first Court held on December 13, 1742 at the home of Matthew Jouett, one of the first acts of the Court was to grant permission to Mr. Jouett to "Keep an ordinary at his home in this County by the Court House." Thus began the pivotal point or nucleus of a community to be known as Louisa Courthouse and later, the village or town of Louisa.

It started in JOUETT'S TAVERN

The ordinary or tavern, located at the site of the courthouse, served as a place of refreshment and lodging for the Justices and visitors to the monthly courts and also to such travelers who might go through the county on the roads from Richmond to Charlottesville. This, however, was not the only function of the establishment. It served as a gathering place for persons on scores of duties or pleasure bent. Legal notices and newspapers were on file, mail was distributed and the tap room was a clearinghouse for news and gossip. The tavern carried a small stock of necessities which could be purchased by the surrounding populace.

No record exists as to the growth of this plantation settlement, which, on Court days, became a scene of commercial activity, but it is to be hoped that Mr. Jouett and his successors served their customers with a more substantial and cleanly fare than that which prevailed in 1782, when the Marquis de Chastellux made his pilgrimage through Louisa Courthouse on his way to visit Mr. Jefferson at Monticello.

In his account of his trip, he records that on 17 April, 1782, while traveling from Willis' Ordinary, which was located in the vicinity of where Bumpass or Buckner are today, he still had about twenty seven or eight miles to ride to the only tavern where it was possible to stay before reaching Mr. Jefferson's - this being Boswell's Tavern. He had been strongly advised by M. de Rochambeau, who had traveled the same road two months before, not to sleep at the tavern at Louisa Courthouse, it being the worst lodging he had found in America. However, in his curiosity to see the place and using the pretense of inquiring for the road, Chastellux went in and saw that there was no other lodging for travelers than the landlord's own room.

The landlord, Major Thomas Johnson, was a man of enormous girth - to the extent that he was confined to an armchair in which he lived, slept, and ate, unable to arise. Rochambeau described the place as the dirtiest, most shocking, most stinking barracks he had ever seen and that the Major lived with a wretched woman who wasted his property and left him to die of uncleanness and misery. This was the same Major Johnson who opposed the removal of the courthouse to another site in 1787, no doubt due to the fact that he, as a Justice would be unable to attend court on account of his highly inflated condition.

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