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Friends of the Rockfish Watershed

Rural Nelson

Nelson County Tourism

Spruce Creek Gallery

Rockfish Valley Community Center

Oakland - Historic Museum of Nelson

Va Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries (Birding and Wildlife Trails)

Virginia Department Of Transportation Environmental Division

Virginia Wedding Ceremonies

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The Legend of Nellysford

Nellysford is a beautiful little place in Nelson Co. VA.
Here is the Legend of How Nellysford got it's name-
The Legend of Nellysford:

"The story is told that at the time of the early settlers, the Rockfish Valley was a barren, rocky wasteland, barely able to sustain the crops of the few homesteaders who inhabited the valley floor. But in the early nineteenth century, a baby girl was born to a struggling frontier family. They named her Nelly, and by her eighteenth birthday she had flowered into the most beautiful and desirable young woman in all of Virginia.

With an inner beauty as captivating as her physical charms, Nelly drew the adoration of suitors throughout the Piedmont. One - a dashing and wealthy young man from Charlottesville - captured her heart, and he would ride for hours each Sunday to come courting. Theirs was a magical love, and with the blessings of their families they became engaged in the spring and were to marry in the autumn.

One midsummer’s eve, by the light of a full moon, Nelly and her beau raced giddily on horseback to the southern end of the Valley for a lovers’ rendezvous. Nearing the river, Nelly and her steed sprang into the lead, her laughter ringing off the rock cliffs of the Blue Ridge mountains above. But as her horse entered the ford in the river at full gallop, his hoof was ensnared by the root of a locust tree and he stumbled, hurling Nelly over his neck and into the swiftly flowing water. She struck her head upon a rock, rendering her unconscious, and by the time her horrified lover reached her, all he could do was to clutch her to his breast and watch helplessly as her life ebbed away.

But as she took her dying breath - by some miracle that no mortal could conceive - Nelly opened her eyes, gazed lovingly into his, and smiled. And the exquisite beauty of that smile flowed from her body into the river, and from the river throughout the valley, nourishing the barren landscape and filling it with her undying love. And that is how this little valley became the most beautiful in all of Virginia, and how our tiny village beside the ford in the river got its name."