Brandonville: Colonel Brandon's Town

Colonel Jonathan Brandon acquired land here in seventeen eighty-six and built the first house on his tract. He laid out the town in eighteen twenty-seven, giving it his own name. Brandonville was chartered formally in eighteen fifty-eight, making it one of the early incorporated towns in Preston County.

The community briefly punched above its size, hosting one of the first two academies for higher education in the entire county, and an iron furnace industry made Brandonville stoves a regional product with a reputation for quality. The Old Hemlock house, a log house dating to about seventeen eighty-two, is among the oldest residences in Preston County and still stands in the area, added to the National Register of Historic Places in two thousand fourteen.