Burnt Ordinary

First called John Lewis's Ordinary and then Fox's, Burnt Ordinary received its name in Jan. 1780 when, according to the Virginia Gazette, Fox's Ordinary burned to the ground. Later, in Oct. 1781, when the French army's wagon train passed by, Alexander Berthier wrote that "two old chimneys" stood here in the fork of the road. Also in 1781, Samuel DeWitt, George Washington's cartographer, noted the site of the "Burnt Brick Ordinary" on one of his maps. Elements of Lafayette's army camped two miles south of here at Chickahominy Church after the Battle of Green Spring on 6 July 1781.