Ashland

In 1837, the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad laid its iron-capped wooden rails from Richmond to Aquia Creek. There, passengers could meet a stagecoach that would transport them to the railroad-owned steamship line and cruise up the Potomac to Washington. In between their outset and destination was a boggy, overgrown area known as the Slashes, which seemed the perfect rest stop for weary travelers during the 1850s. The region was renamed Ashland, after native son Henry Clay's ...