North Fork of the Shenandoah River’s juncture with Cedar Creek

With an area of approximately 157 square miles, the Cedar Creek watershed encompasses portions of southwestern Frederick County, northern Shenandoah County, and a small part of Warren County. Cedar Creek’s upper reaches drain a trio of Allegheny Mountain ridges that are part of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. Near the community of Marlboro, the creek leaves the mountains as it begins to cross the floor of the Shenandoah Valley.

From Great North Mountain’s high ridges and rocky promontories to the Shenandoah Valley’s sunny farm fields, shady forests and recreational properties, the Cedar Creek watershed exhibits a diversity of ecological settings and biological communities. The relative cleanliness of the stream and the quality of its surrounding watershed are reflected in the area’s many distinctive habitats and seldom-seen plant and animal species. The forests bordering Cedar Creek on the Belle Grove Plantation and Cedar Creek Battlefield properties, contain what could be the best displays of spring wildflowers in Frederick County.

For nearly half of its 39-mile length, Cedar Creek forms the natural boundary between Frederick and Shenandoah County. Its last three miles mark the boundary between Shenandoah and Warren County before the creek empties into the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, just east of Strasburg.

If someone is interested in visiting the confluence of the two bodies of water, one can reach the North Fork of the Shenandoah River’s juncture with Cedar Creek by traveling south on Route 11 between Middletown and Strasburg and turning left on Water Plant Road and then making a right on Long Meadow Road. This is indeed a tranquil location where one can stand and reimagine how the region appeared two hundred years ago.

In 1737, when Isaac Hite was 16, his father Jost gave him about 900 acres (part of Jost Hite’s 40,000-acre grant) along the North Fork of the Shenandoah, at the base of the northern end of Massanutten. Known as the Long Meadow Tract, the property was named for its lovely, fertile meadows. It extended from the river toward the land where Belle Grove Plantation now stands.

The Hites built a great log house named "Traveler's Hall" on the property in 1738. The building was a mile downstream from the Shenandoah River's connection with Cedar Creek and about two miles east of the Valley's main thoroughfare, the Great Wagon Road (now State Route 11).

When Isaac Hite, Jr. died in 1836, he left Traveler's Hall to his daughter, Matilda M. Hite Davison. She sold the land four years later, in 1840, to Col. George W. Bowman and his brother, Isaac Bowman, great-grandsons of Jost Hite.

Sometime between 1840 and 1848 Traveler's Hall was destroyed. In 1848 Col. Bowman erected the brick house that stands today. It was built over the wet basement foundation of Traveler's Hall at a cost of about $1,000. Located in northwestern Warren County, Long Meadow is a fine example of a wealthy planter's house of the mid-nineteenth century in the lower Shenandoah Valley. Long Meadow dominates its tranquil rural setting. The two-story brick house displays elements of Federal style in its tripartite second-floor window and central front gable containing an elliptical lunette, but Greek Revival is apparent in the door surround and Doric portico with a shallow-pitched pediment.