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Article: For Years, Abattoir Had the Sweet Smell of Success
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- October 12, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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"It was dirty and messy. I don't know why you would want to write
about it."
So began my recent conversation with J. Lynn Cornwell Jr. about
his family's business in Purcellville. It was once the Virginia
Piedmont's largest private employer and, for half a century, was
well known to cattle and hog farmers not only in the Piedmont, but
from Nebraska to New England.
Cornwell & Son was Loudoun County's only abattoir, known to those
in the trade as Cornwell's and to some of its detractors as "the
rendering plant." Jacob "Jake" Cornwell and his son, J. Lynn
Cornwell Sr., opened the slaughterhouse in 1927.
Jake Cornwell had run a Purcellville grocery since 1900
specializing in meats trucked from ...