Clear Brook, Virginia
unincorporated community in Frederick County, Virginia
Clear Brook is an unincorporated farming community in northern Frederick County, Virginia, United States. The community lies approximately six miles (9.6 kilometers) north of the county seat of Winchester along Martinsburg Pike (U.S. Route 11). It is the site of the Kenilworth home, once owned by Harry K. Thaw, the old Hopewell Meeting House, Stonewall Elementary School, the Clearbrook Park, and the Frederick County Fairgrounds.
Sometimes referred to as Clearbrook, its name was decided upon by the Board on Geographic Names in 1966 as Clear Brook.
Clear Brook drew national attention when resident and Quaker peace activist Tom Fox was kidnapped in Baghdad on November 25, 2005. Fox's body was found March 9, 2006.
Culture
Clear Brook was selected as the site for the Hogging Up BBQ & Music Festival, a Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned event deemed a "State Championship" by the Governor of Virginia for 2013. The event is an annual event supporting local charities under the guidance of Wayne Schafer, a barbecue pitmaster who runs the event.
Clear Brook is well known throughout Northern Virginia as well as the Route 11 and Highway 81 corridors for its annual holiday light display in Clear Brook Park. The light display typically opens the day after Thanksgiving and runs through early January.
The public source identifies “Clear Brook, Virginia” as unincorporated community in Frederick County, Virginia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Clear, Brook and Virginia.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Clear Brook, Virginia”, the useful work is to connect “unincorporated community in Frederick County, Virginia” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5130651. Authority coordinates are 39.256, -78.096. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966, 2005, 2006 and 2013.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Clear Brook, Virginia”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Clear Brook, Virginia primary sources, Clear Brook, Virginia archive and Clear research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Clear Brook, Virginia”?
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- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Clear Brook, Virginia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.