SIZE AND CHARACTER

Caroline County, measuring 549 square miles, remains a largely rural county with big tracts of farmland and timberland. Most residents commute to jobs in Fredericksburg, Richmond or Washington, although the county has a growing industrial base. The Army’s Fort A.P. Hill encompasses 76,000 acres of the county, about 21.5 percent of Caroline’s land area.

Communities, Towns:

Bowling Green is the county seat and the largest town in Caroline. The county’s oldest and only other incorporated town, Port Royal, is on the banks of the Rappahannock River. Ladysmith is the county’s largest and fastest growing unincorporated community. Caroline’s economic development efforts in recent years have been focused in Ladysmith and farther south at Carmel Church.

Milford is a village west of Bowling Green and the site of an industrial park.

The largest residential developments are along the Interstate 95 corridor. They include Lake Caroline and Lake Land’Or, both near Ladysmith. New residential communities, Ladysmith Village and Pendleton, are also being built in that area.

Population:
2006 Census estimate: 26,731
2000 Census: 22,121

HISTORY

Named for Queen Caroline, wife of King George II, the county was formed in 1727 from Essex, King William, and King and Queen counties.

George Rogers Clark, explorer of the Northwest, spent his youth in the county, and his younger brother, William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame, was born in Caroline. Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died at Guinea Station on May 10, 1863, from wounds received at Chancellorsville.

In April 1865, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was killed while hiding in a barn at the Garrett farm near Port Royal.

In June 1941, as part of the effort to mobilize for World War II, the U.S. Army established a training base in the county, Camp A.P. Hill, named for Confederate Maj. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill. Many displaced families who could not find new homes by the Army’s deadline rented prefabricated Farm Security Administration homes.

Today, Fort A.P. Hill remains a training facility used by units from all over the world. The base also has brought national recognition to the county by hosting the National Scout Jamboree every four years since 1981.

Caroline also has a claim to horse-racing fame as the birthplace of 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat.