Woodstock, Virginia

The Town of Woodstock is located in Shenandoah County, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. Woodstock has been the county seat since Shenandoah County was formed in 1772.

In 1752, Jacob Mueller obtained a land grant from Lord Fairfax and proceeded to lay out the town. The town was originally named Muellerstadt after its founder. In 1761, when George Washington sponsored an act in the House of Burgesses to charter the new village, the town was named Woodstock.

Woodstock’s most famous Revolutionary is “the fighting parson,” John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, who came to Woodstock in 1772 to serve as pastor of the area Lutheran congregations. In January of 1776, the Reverend Peter Muhlenberg delivered his now famous sermon calling for volunteers for the county militia to the Continental Army at his church in the middle of Main Street. At the conclusion of his speech, Muhlenberg removed his clerical robe to reveal an officer’s uniform and shouted, “There’s a time to pray and a time to fight…”

During the Civil War, several important battles and numerous skirmishes took place up and down the Old Valley Pike and the Middle and Back Roads. The Valley Pike, the only macadamized road in the area, was vital to the success and agility of General Jackson’s foot cavalry during the Campaign of 1862.

Local men served in the famous Stonewall Brigade and the Muhlenberg Rifles. General Stonewall Jackson made headquarters in several Woodstock locations. The limestone courthouse in the center of town, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson, was visited by soilders from both sides, including Generals Banks, Fremont, Hunter, Sheridan, Ashby, Rosser, Imboden, Jones, Hampton, Gordon, Shield, Early and Ewell.

Union General Phil Sheridan will always be remembered here for ordering “The Burning” of valley mills and barns in order to cutt of supplies for the Confederate Army. He sent his famous telegraph on to Washington in 1864 stating, “I have destroyed over 2000 barns filled with wheat, burned over 70 mills filled with gran and flour…I have made the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia so bare that a crow flying over it would have to carry its knapsack.”

Two days later when George Custer defeated Tom Rosser at the cavalry Battle of Toms Brook, the Confederates retreated south so quickly that Union soldiers dubbed the event the “Woodstock Races.”

So much of the town’s history is readily accessible in the courthouse, the Woodstock Museum and the Wickham House. Please contact the Chamber Office for more information, (540) 459-2542.