Historic Homes on Tour
Waterford Homes Tour & Crafts Exhibit
October 5, 6 & 7, 2012
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Families
in Waterford, Virginia, live modern lives in old houses. Many Waterford
residents live with hand-dug wells, low ceilings, and no air-conditioning
or cable TV. Each day during the Homes Tour, some villagers open
their homes to visitors. Docents welcome you and speak about the
history, architecture and furnishings of these dwellings. Village
houses date from the late eighteenth century through the federal
and Victorian periods and into the twentieth century.
Homes and buildings
that originally were businesses have been restored and renovated
for twenty-first century living. Docents will introduce you to the
cast of colorful characters who once inhabited these fascinating
houses. They were Quakers and staunch abolitionists, slave-owners,
merchants, artisans, freed slaves, warriors, and idealists. Three
centuries of life in a unique American village will tell the back-story
to your visit to the Waterford Fair.
Tours are included in the ticket
price.
Houses on Tour in 2011
Here is a list of houses open this past year:
Friday
William Williams House
In Waterford’s early “subdivision,” this area was called New Town. This house was the scene of an incident in the Civil War.
Griffith/Gover House
A garden with a wonderful view and a story to match.
Wisteria Cottage
Home of the last member of Waterford’s once-thriving black community.
Asbury Johnson House
Earliest of three adjacent Victorian houses in what would have been suburbia in the 1880s.
Isaac Steer Hough House
A staple of Waterford’s commercial history – living quarters over the shop. |
Saturday
James Moore House
A period gem on the Big Hill.
Mahlon Schooley House
Look for a surprise on Saturday morning!
Trouble Enough Indeed
The name itself is a story.
The Methodist Church
New life as a private residence. |
Sunday
The Sugar Shack
Why is it called The Sugar Shack?
Asbury Johnson House
Earliest of three adjacent Victorian houses in what would have
been suburbia in the 1880s.
Samuel Hough House
Noted for the fine interior woodwork.
Shawen House
This home’s owners won a Landmark Award for a sensitive addition to a historic structure.
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House Descriptions and Photos:
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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