2024 Friends of Thomas Balch Library Annual Fundraiser

The Friends of the Thomas Balch Library are hosting an afternoon of intrigue, history, and conversation at the Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum. Along with the talk, enjoy food and beverages, raffle drawings, a silent auction.

Within Thomas Balch Libary are stories known and unexplored: stories that grow Loudoun and the region’s untapped histories. One such story tells of the winter of 1775/76; an unforgiving period that proved tumultuous for Loudoun’s tenant farmers. Reeling from an unprecedented poor harvest, their struggle intensified under the threat of war. Wealthy Revolutionaries rallying against poor representation and British taxes were – ironically – demanding additional taxes of Virginia’s underrepresented tenant farmers. Staggering under the impossibility of their situation, renters turned to local James Cleveland, a revolutionary of a different sort.

Come hear Loudoun’s own Anne Marie Chirieleison explore how this little-known event in our Revolutionary history unfolded, and how the Balch led to her this story!