Homes

Samuel Steer Property

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In 1856 Waterford miller Samuel C. Means (1827-1884) purchased vacant lots 39 and 40 of Mahlon Janney’s 1814 subdivision. By January 1861, with war looming and busy with his mill on Main Street, Means sold the lots on which this house stands to Robert W. Thomas (1825-1905), a blacksmith and hotel keeper. Thomas promptly built this house, but by September 1861, when Confederate troops occupied Waterford, they took over the new house for a hospital.

Later in the war, when the Rebels had withdrawn, Quaker businessman Samuel Steer (1811-1883) rented the house and moved his family into town from his farm south of the village for safety; he finally purchased it in 1867 for $700. Northern sympathizer Steer spent much of the war “exiled” at nearby Point of Rocks, Maryland, serving as the U.S. Customs Agent. During the war, his daughter Sarah and her young neighbors Lida and Lizzie Dutton co-established the fervently pro-union Waterford News. The young women would note, in their paper, after their father’s rare visits home that John Dutton and Samuel Steer had “returned safely to the United States….” In 1864 Steer was arrested by Confederates as he tried to visit his family and imprisoned for his Union sympathies.

At the close of the war, Sarah Ann Steer (1837-1914), held classes for village African-American children, first in her home, then in 1867 at the new one-room school just down Second Street. She taught until 1870 when that school became part of the County’s school system. Her sister Ella taught at the first public school for white children, the Waterford Academy, the predecessor of the Old School on Fairfax Street.

In the 1980s, the owners enclosed a porch. The present owners added an outbuilding, remodeled and enlarged the kitchen, installed a patio and designed and put in a garden with stone walls and a pond.

The Samuel Steer House is open through the courtesy of Edith Crockett and Ed Lehmann.

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Livery Stable

15483 Second Street

The Livery Stable served the transportation needs of Waterford from at least 1851 to the mid-twentieth century, when it was converted first to an antique shop and, in the 1990s, a residence. The 1851 deed mentions the property in conjunction with a hotel/store in the center of the village [The Pink House] suggesting it may have served customers of that enterprise.

In the early 1890s it was the site of T. C. Baker’s “new and nobby livery stable,” featuring “fine carriages, neat buggies, spacious wagons [and] graceful carts,” not to mention “excellent horses.” But those horses could be a problem: the town ordinances prohibited the keeper of livery stables from accumulating more than one cart load of manure at one time from June through November.

At the turn of the century a multi-structure fire near the Livery Stable made a hero of Albert Shawen, who “stayed on top of one of the barns until the hair on his head was burned completely off and his face and arms scorched.”

The livery stable’s most harrowing event occurred on July 23, 1900, when a number of people gathered in the shop to wait out an evening thunderstorm. A visiting Spanish-American War veteran, Warren O’Hara, exchanged words with local farm boy Ernest Mullen, about young Nettie Rinker. The argument escalated, resulting in Mullen’s killing O’Hara with a club. A local posse tracked down the shaken killer almost immediately. He was convicted of murder but served a short sentence.

In the early 20^th century, Ed Beans owned the livery operation; he rented buggies, carriages and horses to everyone from traveling salesmen to villagers needing transportation to a church picnic. One of his horses, “Old John,” was a fine navigator. He was known to deliver his passengers to a favorite bar in Maryland, then when the imbibers were no longer able to “drive,” deliver them safely home, often sound asleep.

The Livery Stable is open through the courtesy of Peter Thomas.

The Iron Store House

40180 Main Street

The ground floor of this home was built “as a ware-house” by Quaker John W. Williams (1771-1840) proprietor of a general store across the street, now the Waterford Post Office.
Williams, one of the first four commissioners of a fledgling Waterford in 1801, was much involved in the early life of the village that was finally incorporated in 1836. Active also in the affairs of Fairfax Monthly Meeting, he and his son William (1816-1892) along with other members of his family, would play a large role in the development of Waterford through the 19th century.
The upper floors, built later, were added possibly after December 1832, when tailor Phineas J. Steer, then in a smaller shop nearby, advertised in the Genius of Liberty, a Leesburg newspaper:

“Journeymen Tailors Wanted.
The subscriber wants, immediately, two first-rate Journeymen Tailors,
to whom he will give constant work, and good prices.
An apprentice also, of good morals, and between the ages of 12 and 15 years, will be taken.
PHINEAS J. STEER.
Waterford, 12th mo. [December] 1st, 1832.”

Two years later he advertised his growing business in the same paper:

Phineas J. Steer,
Informs his friends and the public, that,
having taken the stand formerly occupied as a ware-room, between Dunham’s Store and Klein’s Tavern,
he is prepared to wait upon them, both at the stores and at his shop;
where he will thankfully receive their
TAILORING:
Fine or coarse, imported or home-made—
pledging himself that none shall surpass him,
either in cheapness or excellence of workmanship.
Persons about to get clothes, would do well first to give him a call.
Waterford 1st 3d mo. [March] 1834

A succession of owners followed, some residing there, others renting out the space. An 1853 village map names William Nettle, a fine Pennsylvania carpenter residing on Second Street, as an owner, and another map of 1875 showed Nettle’s widow Sarah still owning it. Mr. John Rollison, owner of the Hardware Store on Second Street, later purchased it. Long-time residents remember Mr. Rollison walking to the town pump for his water as long as he lived there. Richard and Elaine Head bought it after Mr. Rollison died in 1986, hoping to update it but changed their plans and sold it a few years later. Richard Storch modernized the house, adding plumbing, among other amenities.

The Iron Store House is open through the courtesy of Susanne Page.

Pink House Property

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.

Jacob Mendenhall

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

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.

Janney-Phillips

40132 Bond Street

Joseph Janney (c. 1740-about 1793), a Quaker merchant and near relative of Amos Janney, Waterford’s founder, built a log structure here between 1781 and 1784. When Janney moved to Strawberry Vale, his farm a few miles north of the village in 1785, this house was purchased by Thomas Moore, Jr. Thomas’s brother Asa, a tanner, bought the property in April 1799 for 400 pounds. Asa and Thomas Moore Jr.’s sister Elizabeth married Joseph Bond. The Bond family, who married members of the Moore and Phillips families, then made this their home, with periodic additions and alterations, until 1886.

Joseph Janney, although he died relatively young, made his mark as a strong eighteenth-century real estate presence in the village, along with founder Amos Janney, and his son Mahlon. Joseph purchased 12 acres from Francis Hague’s estate in 1781and began selling lots on both sides of Main Street, nearly to the center of town; these boundaries remain essentially unchanged today. He built a second house on one of his lots, now the Joseph Janney house at 40154 Main Street, after selling this house. His will, probated in October 1793, left numerous town and country properties to his widow and several children.

This particular house, on one of the oldest settled streets in the village, was insured by its subsequent owner Thomas Phillips or his heirs in 1803, 1805, 1816, 1827, 1845 and 1859. Copies of these insurance policies are available at the Waterford Foundation Archive and Local History Collection. As of 1803 the Mutual Assurance Company of Virginia described it as a “two-story frame house, 17 x 24, with a one-story brick wing 17 x 23”; it was insured for $1,100.

Relatives by marriage James Moore (brother of Asa, Thomas and Elizabeth, above) and Thomas Phillips ran the tanyard in front of the house in Bond Street Meadow. Eventually “Back Street” was renamed “Bond Street” in the family’s honor. Asa Moore Bond was the final owner of the tanyard, which lasted into the 1870s.

About 1900, Ernest Linwood James bought this house and eight acres. His family sold the property upon the death of his daughter Eleanor in 1986. The Waterford Foundation, fearing the land would be developed, purchased it, selling two home sites and two of the historic homes (Janney Phillips and Asa Moore) to finance the purchase of the remaining land, barn, ice house and meadow.

The Janney-Phillips House is open through the courtesy of Abbie and Bowman Cutter.

Braden House (#6 on map)

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.