in nearby Lynchburg in 1848. New London changed its name to Bedford Springs in the late 1870s after the Echols family marketed water from the nearby alum spring and a large health resort named The Bedford Alum Springs Hotel opened in 1878. Education history In the early 19th century, New London was the location of at least two schools, the New London Academy and the Roland School for girls. New London Academy was a prominent secondary educational institution throughout the 19th century. In the first half of the 19th century, the academy offered a range of subjects and students would receive an individual diploma for every subject completed. New London Academy was so renowned, that Francis Eppes attended the academy at the insistence of his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson. Even during the Civil War, it managed to remain in operation. In its early years, the school had a strong religious affiliation. The school grounds were home to a brick Episcopal meeting house, and the ministers of the church were often the principals of the school. This religious connotation eventually faded, starting with the removal of the Academy Church in 1856 to another location after the original brick building was condemned and torn down in 1855. This separation of the church from the academy lead to it becoming a public school in 1870 and a coeducational school in 1879. New London also hosted the Roland School for girls between 1812 and 1822 in the former Mead's Tavern. Roland was a finishing school run by Samuel T. Miller and his wife and may have held up to forty students at a time. The school closed in 1822 when Samuel Miller moved to Lynchburg to start another school. Military history It is possible that because of New London's central location in Bedford County it was a natural place for the county militia to drill and assemble for war. The county militia participated in several frontier conflicts including the French and Indian and Anglo-Cherokee wars. During the early French and Indian war, the Cherokees were allied with the British. That all changed when a series of misunderstandings and thefts led to a confrontation in 1758 between a Cherokee war party and colonists from Bedford County that left at least five Virginians and thirty Cherokees dead. This incident near New London exacerbated the already tense relationship between the British and the Cherokees and helped set in