The community of Stony Point sits on the highest point of land almost exactly halfway on the Charlottesville to Barboursville Road, and at the intersection of Route 600 with Route 20. Located on the western side of the Southwest Mountains, Stony Point sits on land that has been thrust upward by the forces of the earth to the point where much of the normally deeply buried subterranean bedrock has b
een pushed through to the surface in many places and lies very close to the surface in others. This area remained as part of Louisa County until 1761 when land from southwestern Albemarle was taken to form Nelson and Buckingham counties, and this section of Louisa was added to Albemarle giving it the shape it has today.The Southwest Mountains were among the first areas settled as colonists moved westward in the 1720s and 1730s, and the framework of its road system was in place as early as the 1740s, even though primitive and rough, Route 20 was originally called Coursey's Road, and Route 600 that crosses the mountains was Chestnut Ridge Road.The new settlers tried to bring with them the vestiges of Tidewater and Piedmont agriculture they had developed, namely the large tobacco plantation, but by the Revolutionary War, it was clear that "tobo" was not a suitable crop for the soils of the hilly terrain. What is did accomplish, however, was to establish the network of roads in order to get crops to the port of Milton on the Rivanna River, to Richmond and the tidal James River and on to British and European markets. As wheat and corn took root in its place, other agribusiness such as cattle and horse husbandry and orchards were started, especially in the western slopes of the Southwestern Mountains. As the soil there is among Virginia's most productive for hardwood growth, timber products became very important as well. Later, viticulture joined the diversity. Stony Point, then, was a crossroads community, where Richard Burch kept an inn before the Revolutionary War. Burch was a peripatetic innkeeper, eventually hosting Michie's Old Tavern outside of Earlysville for awhile, and later the Swan Tavern at Court Square in Charlottesville. Nathaniel Burnley was licensed in 1820 to keep the Stony Point Tavern, and he did so until 1829 when he decided to become a miller, buying the Hydraulic Mills on the Rivanna. The Piedmont Environmental Council named the tavern as one of the few early taverns still in existence in the county in its 1989 Resource Preservation Study. Along with a place for travelers to spend the night and a social gathering place for residents, Stony Point at the turn of the 19th century was one of four districts in the county for elections, and a post office was operating there at least as early as 1835. Jefferson's Albemarle, W.P.A. 1941
