One mile north is Chesterville, birthplace of George Wythe (1726-1806), a prominent Virginia attorney, judge, legislator, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Wythe inherited the family plantation in the 1750s and operated it until the 1790s. After Chesterville’s sale in 1802, the Hudgins and Winder families owned and farmed it until the 1930s; the house was destroyed by fire in 1911. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics purchased Chesterville in 1950. By the 1970s, archaeological excavations had identified a stone foundation believed to be from the house where Wythe was born.