Their settlement was then known as Pearsall's Flats. In 1738, John Pearsall (or Pearsoll) and his brother Job built homes and in 1758 a fort ( Fort Pearsall) for defense against Native Americans in present-day Romney. Romney was initially settled by hunters and traders around 1725. He remarked that when a county was formed west of Frederick that he would name it in honor of the county Hampshire, England, famous for its very fat hogs. He was told that they were from the South Branch Potomac River Valley (now Hampshire County). The story goes that Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693–1781), who owned the Royal Grant to the area, came upon some very large hogs in Winchester and asked where they had been raised. According to Samuel Kercheval's A History of the Valley of Virginia (1833), the county was named in honor of its several prize hogs. Although its creation was authorized in 1754, Hampshire County was not actually organized until 1757 because the area was not considered safe due to the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1754–1763).
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