Sunday's Washington Post had a lengthy article by historian and cartographer Eugene Scheel about Fauquier and Loudoun counties in the 1860 election. See excerpt below -- you can read the complete story by going to the Post's website (registration required, but it is free) and searching for "Fauquier." (Stories are available only for a couple weeks, so this is one you will want to print out.) Scheel notes, later in the article: ==Lincoln had a family connection to Fauquier, though it was not then considered one to boast about. David Herbert Donald, in his 1995 biography "Lincoln," quotes Lincoln as telling his law partner, William H. Herndon, in the early 1850s that Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, was "the illegitimate daug hter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter." Donald quotes Lincoln as saying in 1860, when his friends asked him for autobiographical information that might boost his chances for the presidency: "My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families -- second families, perhaps I should say." Nancy Hanks's father remains unidentified, but she was baptized in 1778 in the waters of Broad Run close to Broad Run Baptist Church. The church then stood atop Saint's Hill, a mile north of present-day New Baltimore. == Lincoln Was No Favorite at the Polls Sunday, October 17, 2004; Page PW06 In the 1860 presidential election, Fauquier and Loudoun county voters cast only 12 ballots for the winner, Abraham Lincoln. The previous year, an unexpected revolt had frightened or worried many people who might otherwise have voted for the man who saved the Union and brought an end to slavery. Loudoun and Fauquier were at the time the wealthiest counties in Virginia. Agricultural land sold for $20 an acre and more, the most expensive in the state. Corn, wheat and grain harvests were unsurpassed in the commonwealth and commanded high prices at the seaport of Alexandria, linked to the hinterlands by three well-kept toll roads. Prosperity continued after John Brown's Oct. 16, 1859, raid on Harper's Ferry. Brown's aim was to liberate and arm area slaves and set up an autonomous realm for them in the mountains of Maryland and western Virginia, where there were few slaveholders. That such an insurrection could happen only a half-mile from the Loudoun border -- even though it lasted just 2 1/2 days and involved 22 insurgents -- led to an abrupt change in the county's political climate, from apathy to uncertainty. There was outright fear in the Between the Hills and Lovettsville areas, a few miles from the ferry. Fauquier's reaction was more subdued, being 25 miles from the ferry at its closest point, the village of Paris. Furthermore, Fauquier's military companies were commanded by such experienced leaders as Brig. Gen. Turner Ashby and Capt. John Scott Jr. Gov. John A. Wise ordered three Fauquier and two Loudoun companies (about 250 men total) to the ferry. They spent most of their time drilling and on guard duty until their tour ended in mid-December with an oyster and champagne supper at Charles Town, where Brown had been tried and imprisoned and hanged Dec. 2. When the Fauquier companies returned home, they were feted by the women of Warrenton with a pre-Christmas ball at the old Warren Green Hotel.