Leesburg, founded in 1758, was the county seat of Loudoun County. The English traveler Nicholas Cresswell described the town in 1774 as “regularly laid off in squares, but very indifferently built and few inhabitants and little trade, tho’ very advantageously situated, for it is at the conjunction of the great Roads from the North part of the Continent to the South and the East and the West” (CRESSWELL description begins Lincoln MacVeagh, ed. The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774–1777. New York, 1924. description ends , 48).