The white post of White Post, Virginia, has been standing, in various rebuilt and repaired iterations, since 1750. Courtesy: Jill Devine
The tiny Virginia village of White Post has a historic claim to fame, that people keep knocking over.
The officer who responded to the accident in White Post, Virginia, must have been new to the area. He pulled up to the intersection of Berry’s Ferry and White Post Roads, where locals were gathering, and he began to fill out a report. Noting the damage to the vehicle, he gazed at the splintered 11-foot wooden street post and asked who put it in the middle of the road in the first place.
“Actually, it was George Washington,” answered Billy Thompson, who owns a repair shop across the street. “The officer’s face went blank, but then he shrugged and just finished the report,” laughs Thompson, whose family has been repairing the post for about 70 years.
The accident was just one in a long history of collisions. And, yes, all fingers point to 17-year-old surveyor George Washington as the one most likely to have planted the marker there more than 270 years ago for a family friend and mentor, Lord Thomas Fairfax.
Wood markers had to be tall enough to be spotted on horseback. This particular post, placed at the edge of developing wilderness, directed travelers wanting to lease or buy land to Fairfax’s office on Greenway Court.
The post preceded the village for which it was named. Along two intersecting colonial roads, villagers gradually erected houses, shops and churches. After the arrival of paved roads and automobiles, the post did not budge. Standing like an awkward centennial in the middle of the road, Washington’s marker remained the village’s dearest claim to fame.
The post has often been replaced due to wood rot or accidents. There is no record of the original design, but Washington’s journals mention markers made of locust.
Old photographs show variations of the octagonal post and its four directional paddles (Battletown, Greenway Court, Berry’s Ferry, Stephens City). Some photos show a simple finial at the top, and others show a lantern.
Thompson says that when the interior post needs total replacement, they use a locust tree from Mount Vernon. “We have a contact there to help us with that.”
The post can never be relocated, because it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which some motorists apparently find inconvenient.
Thompson lost count of the number of accidents, but his business has rebuilt the post 13 times. About 20 years ago, a SUV hit the post with such force that it destroyed the post and totaled the flipped vehicle. The driver, a physician, told police “he didn’t see” the large post. “A daytime accident in a 25-mile speed zone,” shrugs Thompson. Other accidents involved snow plows, street pavers, tractor trailers, and pick-up trucks.
One repair went to court when the responsible party refused to pay for damages. That’s when the Virginia Department of Transportation claimed ownership. Now Thompson conducts repairs as a contractor to VDOT, and he says a complete redo takes about 30 hours and costs $5,000.
The latest damage to the post was a late-night hit-and-run encounter in December 2020. “We have a security camera,” says Thompson, whose primary business is renowned automobile shop White Post Restorations (see our Sept./Oct. 2021 issue for a profile). “A service truck was pulling a trailer, and the trailer caught the edge of the post, spun it a bit and broke a few of the boards, but we couldn’t catch the license plate number.”
Thompson has the drill down pat, and repairs were promptly scheduled. “White Post residents love this post,” he says. “It’s what we’re known for, and we don’t want it to ever go away.”
The story above first appeared in our January/ February 2022 issue.
