Waterford Fair

78th American Crafts & Historic Homes Tour

Friday Homes

Monroe Hough House (#7 on map)

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This house stands on lots 20 and 26 of a 64-lot of land owned by Quaker Mahlon Janney and auctioned after his death in 1812. In 1851, Carpenter Samuel C. Hough (1811-1887) a

Methodist, purchased the two lots, still-undeveloped. Shortly before he died in 1887, one of his and Mary Smallwood Hough’s nine children, Andrew Monroe Hough (1852-1915) bought the pair for $95 and combined them into one lot.

By the end of 1888 “Roe” Hough’s purchase featured a new frame house and the property was valued at $750. He married Edith Virginia, daughter of Waterford blacksmith Silas Corbin. Roe worked as a dry goods clerk in Waterford for much of his life, including at the Corner Store. Edith, at one point, worked in a millinery store on Main Street. The couple had no children but Roe was civic-minded.

In February 1888 a county newspaper reported that Mr. Hough lent a neighborly hand to two little children “who were brought to town on the morning of the 3rd, in a dreadful condition, having their feet, and the stomach of one, badly frozen. ”Roe” raised money to get some necessary clothing. Kind people of the town furnished them suitable garments and Dr. G. E. Connell administered medical aid.”

That same year, Hough served as registrar for an election in the village. Roe died in 1915; Edith in 1946, two years after selling the house to Eleanor Love James, of a long-time Waterford family.  The house subsequently passed through several owners until 2002 when the Hertel family purchased it from Elaine Reynolds, who with her husband Neil had enlarged it in 1982.

The house includes overhanging eaves, shingle siding, and two-over-two windows, all popular at the time of its construction.

Bank House Property

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This finely crafted house was probably built about 1806 by young Israel H. Thompson. Unfortunately, he died the same year, at age 22. The building he left is notable for its precisely mortared brickwork and an elegant architrave under the eaves.

Thompson’s executors sold the house to Richard Chilton in 1809, and in 1815 Isaac Steer and his son Jonah purchased the building. Early on, Isaac rented a “storeroom” in the house to the newly formed Loudoun Company, a bank founded by local farmers and businessmen. The enterprise was short-lived but, according to tradition, the steel door of its vault was repurposed to cap a horse-mounting block across the street.

The Chamberlin family that began the restoration of Waterford bought the property in the late 1930s and held it for more than 70 years. Wellman Chamberlin, National Geographic’s chief cartographer, made extensive repairs and improvements to the old building at mid-century, including replacing a dilapidated porch that spanned the front façade with a hand-carved door surround he fashioned himself.

The Bank House is open through the courtesy of the current owners Julia and Samuel Thompson.

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Walker-Phillips (#2 on map)

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Exterior Only

This house has had few owners during its nearly 200-year history.  It was apparently built shortly before 1820 when David and Elizabeth Janney, members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), sold it to fellow Quaker farmer and merchant Isaac Walker (1781-1851) for $350. After his death, Walker’s widow, the former Susan Talbott, lived here until her own passing in 1872. Two years later her executors sold it to Elizabeth Janney Sidwell Phillips (1827-1913).  Elizabeth, the widow of Thomas Phillips (1813-1865), helped run the family farm, today’s “Phillips Farm,” with her four sons.  The Phillips farm adjoins the property at the rear and has been protected in perpetuity by the Waterford Foundation.

Elizabeth Phillips left the house to her son Arthur when she died in 1913. He sold it to Peter H. Carr (1843-1922), a veteran of the Confederate Cavalry and the first non-Quaker owner. In 1941 Carr’s commissioners sold the house to local dairy farmer Ernest M. Edwards. Sarah Holway bought it from Ernest’s descendants in 2014.

The Walker-Phillips property is open courtesy of Sarah Holway and Matt Rasnake.

Pink House Property

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In 1825, Lewis Klein opened this building as a tavern. He had purchased the lot from Quaker William Hough a decade earlier for $80. Like many of its neighbors on Main Street, it was designed for mixed use—a store or other business on the ground floor and a residence above. It therefore had no interior staircase between the first and second floors until a 1950s modernization.

The present large downstairs room was built as two rooms with a central corridor; it has seen many uses over the years. After serving as a tavern, the space became variously an apothecary and hardware store. In the 1880s the building was the home and office of Dr. G. E. Connell, an enterprising physician. He introduced the first telephone to the village in 1884 and charged customers ten cents to call the railroad depot at Clarke’s Gap, three miles distant. In the early 20th century, a side addition was used as a barbershop. In the early 1950s, a new owner painted the house the color “of the setting sun on Waterford brick.” The paint was meant to slow weathering of the soft, locally-made brick; it has been repainted in other shades since. In more recent years, the Pink House has been a popular bed and breakfast destination.

The present garden area has seen a succession of buildings over the past 200 years, including blacksmith and wheelwright shops and a succession of stores well into the 20th century. A town hall and informal auditorium occupied the loft area of a large stable on the site. One of these shops stood where the new stone kitchen now stands. That building served briefly as a residence. During an exceptionally rainy period with water pouring down the hill behind, a tenant joked, “I have the most modern house in Waterford— running water in every room!”

The previous owners, Dr. and Mrs. Charles Anderson protected the Pink House with the gift of an easement to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

The Pink House is open through the courtesy of Isaac Johnson and Jeff Darrah.

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Jacob Mendenhall

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15620 Second Street

Quakers Jacob Mendenhall (1788-1822) and his wife, the former Beulah Thomas, were “received on certificate from Baltimore Monthly Meeting” in 1813. The couple immediately settled into their new village, buying two quarter-acre lots from the estate of Mahlon Janney in 1814 for $97.25 and constructing the house shortly thereafter.  It was built of locally made brick and has two front doors, a feature more commonly seen in Pennsylvania.

As a new member of Fairfax Meeting in 1815, Jacob served on a meeting committee to establish a school for Quaker education and became headmaster that year. One of his students, Noah Swayne, later achieved prominence when appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

Mendenhall and Isaac Walker owned and operated a store in Waterford from 1816 to1819. Mendenhall was a stockholder and cashier of the first bank in Loudoun County—also in Waterford—where he was responsible for day-to-day operations. Jacob served as clerk of Fairfax Meeting.

Jacob’s only child, Hannah, who inherited the house after her father died in 1822,   operated a school in the large first-floor room in the 1830s. She married Lewis D. Worley, postmaster of Waterford, in 1838. One of their daughters, Susan Worley, taught at Frying Pan Road School in Fairfax County and boarded at nearby Sully Plantation.

In 1867 the Worleys sold the house to Rachel Steer, who made it her home for 20 years. Rachel (1814 –1912) is buried in the Quaker Cemetery.

In 1896 the house was conveyed to the Methodist Church and was used as a parsonage for almost 50 years. The brick kitchen wing burned in 1915 and was replaced with a larger frame addition.

The most recent addition (to the rear of the house) was completed in 2009.

The Jacob Mendenhall House is protected through a preservation easement to the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission.

The Jacob Mendenhall House is open through the courtesy of Bob and Judy Jackson.

Talbott’s Tavern

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40162 Main Street

Talbott’s Tavern is part of what is informally called “Arch House Row.” These four residences have undergone considerable change since the early 19th century: Interior partitions have been  adjusted as families intermarried, sold and resold portions, or adjusted to suit their own tastes or  needs. Doors, windows, porches, balconies, siding, even gables, all have changed over time.

Edward and Leroy Chamberlin, brothers from early Waterford families began their extensive restoration efforts in the village with this block of buildings in the 1930s. Joseph Talbott, Jr. purchased the earlier stone portion in the early 1800s, added another story in brick (some of which is now covered in clapboard), and tied it into the stone Talbott House to the south. Talbott and William Paxon (Talbott’s backer) were granted an “ordinary” license and were open for business in 1808.

Joseph Talbott, Jr. was born in Waterford in 1774 to a Maryland Quaker family, but was dismissed in 1796 “for joining in light company, frolicking and dancing.” By 1801 he further blotted his record by marrying a non-Quaker and owning or employing a slave. He eventually sold the successful business to Presbyterian Nathaniel Manning for $5600 and set up a new hotel in Frederick, Maryland.

The Loudoun Company, Loudoun County’s earliest bank, was formed here; the trustees later moved it across the street to 40149 Main Street, which had a cellar vault. This has also been the site of the auctioning of some slaves about 1820. The village was founded by Quakers, but enslaved African Americans lived in town and on surrounding farms alongside their free neighbors. The hotel/tavern went through a series of owners and businesses over the years, including a butcher shop and grocery store—Charlie Divine the shoemaker lived and worked here.

The Loudoun Hotel was the last commercial enterprise here in the 1920s, before being purchased by the Chamberlin brothers who renovated the structures and returned them to residential use.

Talbott’s Tavern is open through the courtesy of Laurie and Wells Goddin.

Braden House (#6 on map)

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Braden House

Loudoun entrepreneur, miller and banker Robert Braden (1765-1827) appears to have purchased the lot on which this house stands about 1820; the house was built soon afterward of brick fired in the meadows behind the houses across the street.

Later in the nineteenth century, the house was bought by Decatur H. “Dick” Vandevanter, mayor of Waterford from 1891-1892. Vandevanter, a son-in-law of Lewis Neal Hough, inherited his chair manufactory and undertaking establishment next door. Dick was a forward-thinking man.  He owned one of the first automobiles in Waterford and caught the notice of Leesburg’s Washingtonian-Mirror in August 1903 when he had “fixtures placed in his residence for heating the same with hot water.” 

The house today reflects a variety of architectural styles from the 19th and 20th centuries. The Federal-style house with brick-on-stone foundation, Flemish bond and closers on the front façade and five-course common bond on all other sides, is common to the area.  The Victorian style wrap-around porch and the south bay window were added by local builder “Eb” Divine in 1913. A portion of the side porch was later enclosed and used as a medical office by Dr. Robert Caldwell, one of Waterford’s country doctors.  The beaded woodwork in the kitchen, random width flooring upstairs and narrow winding staircases are typical of many Waterford homes.

Typical, too, are the stories of its various residents, including Rebecca K. Williams, who acquired the house around 1842. On a Sunday in September 1863, in wartime Waterford, Quaker Williams noted  in her diary, “…soldiers in all directions riding and walking, but none have been in this morn for food; to meeting [at Fairfax Meetinghouse], when we came home found the cellar had been broken open, butter & pies taken. Quite a disappointment & provocation.…”

The Braden House is open through the courtesy of Peggy and David Bednarik.

 

Pierpoint House (#1 on map)

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Pierpoint House

40138 Main Street

In 1785 Quaker Joseph Janney sold several lots to Richard Richardson of Frederick County, Maryland, for ten pounds “lawful money of Virginia.”  Mr. Richardson divided the land and sold two lots to Francis Pierpoint, Sr., who had married into the Richardson family. Mr. Pierpoint built the existing residence (seen on the left) characterized by its Flemish bond brickwork sometime after 1795, as well as a neighboring two-story wood-over-stone building that has since vanished.

In 1809 Samuel Pierpoint purchased the house and operated a dry goods store in the building next door.  After his death three years later, his widow Margaret married cabinet maker Sanford Edmonds who used the dependency for his shop. He in turn died nine years later (“from eating too many cherries and swallowing the seeds,” according to one account). Margaret died in 1838. Six years later, both buildings were sold at auction (the brick portion for $295, and the smaller building for $44) from the second floor porch to Ann Taylor Ratcliffe, a Quaker widow with four young children.

Mrs. Ratcliffe operated a shop on the first floor of this dwelling, selling lace, fabric and notions. As was the custom of the time, she and a sister, Mary, lived above the shop. During the late 1840s and 1850s, two of her daughters, Mary and Sarah, taught many local children here in the ground floor rooms.

Subsequent owners added an interior staircase in the 1950s—until then the only access to the second floor living quarters was from the outside stair case and front porch.  The large stone wing at the rear was built in 1960. During the latter renovation, the living room, dining room and kitchen were moved upstairs to the second level. Other restoration work includes the second floor library, and third floor living quarters in the 1990s.

In 2005 the stone addition was built on the land which was the site of Mr. Richardson’s original dwelling.  That was a wooden building and the only portion of the dwelling that remained was the fireplace. The stone mantel from that fireplace now serves as the large stone step into the kitchen. The docents will give details of this stone addition.

The Francis Pierpoint House is open through the courtesy of the owner Cate Magennis Wyatt. 

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