Biohazard Cleanup Near Williamstown Dumfries, VA

Dumfries is a town in Prince William County, Virginia, sitting along U.S. Route 1 about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C.

Dumfries received its charter on May 11, 1749, making it the oldest continuously chartered town in Virginia.

The town was formally established on 60 acres at the head of the harbor of Quantico Creek, on land provided by John Graham, who named it after his birthplace of Dumfries, Scotland.

Dumfries' history began around 1690, when Richard Gibson erected a gristmill on Quantico Creek, with a customhouse and warehouse following in 1731.

At its peak in 1763, Dumfries was the second leading port in Colonial America receiving tobacco from the upland, rivaling New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Dumfries declined after the Revolutionary War, as erosion and siltation choked its harbor and the main shipping trade shifted from tobacco to wheat and sugar.

Dumfries served as the Prince William County courthouse site until the courthouse was moved to Brentsville in 1822.

The town's history is preserved at the Weems-Botts Museum, a building once home to Mason Locke Weems, George Washington's first biographer and creator of the famous cherry-tree story, and later used as a law office by Benjamin Botts.

The Leesylvania Archeological Site (44PW7), the Old Hotel, and the Weems-Botts Museum in Dumfries are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Henderson House still stands on a hill in Dumfries; it was built by merchant Alexander Henderson, whose son Archibald Henderson became a famous commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.