James William Head

James William Head was an American writer and local historian born in 1883. The main work reliably associated with him is History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia, first published in 1909.

That book stands out as a broad survey of Loudoun County’s past, landscape, communities, and public life. In its introduction, the author describes combining personal research and observation with material drawn from other sources, which helps explain the book’s lasting value as a window into Virginia local history.

Little biographical information about his life beyond his birth year is easy to confirm from the sources reviewed here. For that reason, it is safest to remember him chiefly through his surviving work and its contribution to documenting Loudoun County in the early 1900s.