Fincastle was founded in 1772 and named after Lord Fincastle, son of Lord Dunmore, Virginia's last royal governor. As the seat of Botetourt County, Fincastle was something of the last outpost before the Western frontier serving as a supply station for settlers heading West. From its inception until the Revolutionary war, Fincastle oversaw a massive governmental district that stretched to the Mississippi River and included parts of modern day Wisconsin. Town lore says that folks who lived more than 500 miles away were excused from jury duty. Fincastle's courthouse was designed by Thomas Jefferson and today still houses county government functions for a much smaller county and contains a vast archive of public records relevant to the late colonial Virginia and the Western expansion periods. George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and other prominent Virginians either appeared in Fincastle or sent their agents to lay claim to tracts of wilderness lands. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark departed from Fincasle when they were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the Louisiana Purchase. Two years after his arrival back in Virginia, Clark married Julia Hancock of Fincastle on January 5,1808. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fincastle%2C_Virginia