Franklin and Augusta exhibited different spatial organizations, with a more organized and commercial approach in Franklin and a settlement in Augusta that followed the contours of soil and land more closely.

Few towns appeared in Augusta outside of the county seat of Staunton. Instead, the county had numerous clusters of settlement that have place names associated with them and a few non-residential institutions, places that might be labeled "villages."

In Augusta, 57 percent of residents lived more than a mile from a town or village, while in Franklin only 45 percent lived that far away. In Augusta town development followed geographic features, as residences clustered around a sulphur spring, a mountain gap, or a creek. These clusters of residences usually surrounded either a mill, church, or school and were not arranged on a gridded layout. In Franklin, by contrast, gridded streets were common.

Staunton held 13 percent of the county's white population, but was laid out in no particular order. Large sections of the town were developed in blocks but not in ways that connected them to the already developed sections of town. Instead, Staunton was built on a series of promontories, from which large houses and institutions might hold prominence. The courthouse was just one of several major institutions in Staunton, including the Western Lunatic Asylum, the Augusta Female Seminary, and the Wesleyan Female Institute. The town held 40 of 101 merchants in Augusta, 14 of 57 physicians, 7 of 27 ministers, and 5 of the 11 attorneys.

Augusta County, Va., Towns (map)

Augusta County Town, Lebanon White Sulpher Springs (map)

Augusta County Town, Parnassus (map)

Augusta County Town, Waynesborough (map)

Comparison, Elevation (map)

Comparison, Towns (map)

Distances to Major Institutions (table)

Franklin County, Pa., Towns (map)

Franklin County Town, Fannettsburg (map)

Franklin County Town, Greencastle (map)

Franklin County Town, Pleasant Hall (map)

Population of Cities and Towns, 1860 (table)

Town and Rural Distribution of Household Wealth (table)

Related Historiography

Fred Bateman and Thomas Weiss, A Deplorable Scarcity: The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981).

John D. Majewski, A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia Before the Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Edward Pessen, "How Different from Each Other Were the Antebellum North and South," American Historical Review 85 (1980): 1119-1149.

Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1986).