The land on which Sperryville is located is part of 3,000 acres granted by King George II of Great Britain to Francis Thornton in 1731.  This land was regranted to Thornton in 1751 by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, owner of the Northern Neck Proprietary, after Fairfax won his suit to prevent the king from granting land in the Proprietary. Part of this land was inherited by a descendant, also named Francis Thornton, in 1817. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, became a Presbyterian minister, and was sent from his home in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to organize a Presbyterian church in what was then western Culpeper County. In 1820 he began selling small lots of land along the main road (currently Main Street, VA Route 1001). The first deed was for a ½-acre lot “in a little town laid off by me, the said Francis Thornton Jr., and surveyed by Johnston Menefee … the village is in a flat adjoining the lands of John Menefee between the Pass Mill (today’s Fletcher’s Mill) and Thornton’s Gap.” The village of Sperryville is named on an 1821 map of Culpeper County created by John Wood.