Historic Homes on Tour

Friday

William Williams House

John Williams (1771-1840) constructed the front portion of this house in 1815 or 1816. His son William was born here in 1816 and lived his entire 77 years in this dwelling. William Williams served on Waterford's town council and was president of the Loudoun Mutual Fire Insurance Company from 1850 to 1891. In 1863 the Confederates held him hostage in Richmond's Castle Thunder Prison—along with fellow Quaker Robert Hollingsworth—for two rebels held by the north. The Williams house is a typical Federal era Waterford dwelling, with its side hall, stone foundation, jack arches over the windows, Flemish bond façade, and common bond sides.

The rear wing, which was added in 1840, was gutted by a fire in 1969. The original Federal style porch was replaced by the wrap around porch in the 1920s.

The Griffith/Gover House

This house is the remaining structure of several that once occupied this lot. Between 1796 and 1803, Richard Griffith erected a storehouse. Jesse Gover (1791-1842) took over the house and business in 1819. His son Samuel (1824-1907) served as storekeeper and postmaster here from 1862 to 1882, though he was absent in the north for much of the war. Early in the 20th century, the James family operated a store and boarding house on the site, with a goldfish pond and swimming pool in the rear. The millrace behind the house, enlarged for canoeing, once formed a small island. A dance pavilion and a large masonry megaphone remain. But a small dwelling and the Gover's frame storehouse along the street to the left of the remaining building were demolished early in the 20th century.

Wisteria Cottage

This small brick house was probably constructed early in the 19th century. During much of its history, it belonged to the Gover family, prominent Quakers. They sold the house to Gover descendant Wellman Chamberlin in the 1930s or 1940s. For half a century it was the home of Mary Elizabeth Wallace (1919-1999), the last member of Waterford's once-thriving black community.

Asbury Johnson House

Asbury Johnson erected this home in 1886. It is the earliest of the Victorian houses lining Second Street, and is less exuberantly embellished than others of the period.

The Isaac Steer Hough House

Isaac Steer Hough, Jr. (1840-1915), erected this Victorian-style building in 1886, allegedly incorporating a smaller earlier dwelling. Hough ran a store on the ground floor, and that space has housed various shops since. To this day there is no interior access to the upper floors.

Saturday

The James Moore House

James Moore (c.1757-1826), Asa's brother, built the brick portion of this dwelling between 1808 and 1815. By the time Daniel Webster Minor (c.1836-c.1905), a free black who helped out the Loudoun Rangers during the Civil War, purchased it at auction in 1873, the house was in a very deteriorated condition. "Web" fixed it up and his family owned the house until 1948. A recent frame addition to the west complements the early brick dwelling.

The Mahlon Schooley House

Mahlon Schooley (b.1788), who later helped establish a Quaker community in Iowa, built this brick house in 1817. Like many Waterford dwellings, the original portion is a three-bay brick bank building on a stone foundation, with a metal gable roof. The rain gutters almost hide a mousetooth cornice. The house was enlarged at the rear in the 1840s, and late in that century an owner reconstructed the south wall of the house, adding windows and lengthening the first story windows.

Trouble Enough Indeed

Believe it or not, this dwelling did not appear in Waterford until the early 1970s. Its owners moved two 19th century log houses from Lewisdale, Maryland, to this site and reassembled them into the home seen here.

Methodist Church

This parcel of land was vacant until 1877, when Joel Haines sold it to the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. As can be seen from the cornerstone to the left of the door, the Methodists immediately began construction. In 1968, the dwindling congregation could no longer support a church, and it sold the structure. The present owners bought the building in 1994 and extensively renovated it, cleverly adapting it for use as an office and guesthouse.

Sunday

The Sugar Shack

This V-notched log home replaces two buildings that burned in 1965, when a resident lit a fire in his attic in a misguided attempt to keep his bee hives from freezing. The logs came from a building near Dulles Airport.

The house has since been covered with wood siding.

Asbury Johnson House

Asbury Johnson erected this home in 1886. It is the earliest of the Victorian houses lining Second Street, and is less exuberantly embellished than others of the period.

Samuel Hough House

Samuel Hough-the Quaker Samuel, not the later Methodist, and another of "Old John's" grandsons-erected this dwelling between 1817 and 1820. It remained in the Hough family until the 1830s, when Israel T. Griffith lived here. By 1875, Jacob Scott, secretary of the Loudoun Mutual Fire Insurance Company, owned the house. This is one of the most elegantly embellished dwellings in Waterford, with keystone lintels, an unusual and striking cornice, and beautifully carved interior woodwork-the only house to have an interior protective easement.

The Shawen House

Although it appears on an 1853 map of the village, the earliest known transaction involving this building is an 1879 sale from William Nettle's heirs to Milton Schooley (1833-1908), a Quaker miller who owned The Dormers next door. This may be another house constructed by Nettle. In later years it was the home of the Shawen family, relatives of the Schooleys.