Lynchburg?
“Lynching was named for Colonel Charles Lynch who used the practice (stringing victims up by their thumbs) during the American Revolutionary War to deal with Tories and criminal elements. After the war, as the nation expanded so did the practice of lynching. The rule of lynching as a method to maintain the social order was referred to as lynch law .
In the mid-1750’s, the colonial village of New London in central Virginia was an important trading center, however, it was difficult to reach from northern towns (such as Charlottesville) due to the necessity of fording the Fluvanna (now James) River, which passed twelve miles north of the village. John Lynch, son of land-owner Charles Lynch and Quaker Sarah Clark Lynch, decided to remedy this problem, and in 1757, established a ferry service on the James a few hundred yards upstream from the ford, on property owned by his father. The ferry service remained profitable for many years, and by the end of the American Revolution, the village at Lynch’s Ferry had itself become an important center of trade. Lynch saw the possibilities of establishing a town on the hill overlooking the ferry site, and in late 1784 petitioned the General Assembly of Virginia for a town charter. In October, 1786, the charter was granted, founding the town of Lynchburg. “