Historic Homes on Tour

Friday

Jacob Mendenhall House

Jacob Mendenhall (1788-1822), an enterprising Quaker merchant, banker and schoolteacher, constructed this dwelling between 1814 and 1820. His daughter Hannah inherited the house in 1822 and also operated a school here. Methodist Church trustees used the house as a parsonage from 1886 to 1941. The two front doors reflect a Pennsylvania German building trend. Quaker families often constructed dwellings with three rooms on the principal floor; one door opened into a large room extending the depth of the house, while the other door opened into a smaller room about half of the house's depth.

The Pink House

This house was constructed by Lewis Klein (1783-1837) sometime between 1816 and 1825, when he opened a "House of Entertainment" (tavern) in the building. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the ground floor was used first as a pharmacy and later as a general store. An interior stair connecting the ground level to the rest of the house was added in the 1950s, and the soft brick was painted a distinctive pink .

William Nettle House

William Nettle, Waterford's first mayor and a master builder from Pennsylvania, completed this house in 1822. Nathan Walker (1802-1871) bought it in 1840 and it remained in the Walker family until 1921. This dwelling has a hall-parlor interior plan. The front door opens into the principal entertainment area, or hall, and a smaller private room, the parlor, adjoins the hall. Notice the lovely candlestick molding embellishing the cornice. The pedimented door surround was added in the 1950s.

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.

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.

Saturday

Samuel Means House

Mahlon Janney built the stone wing circa 1762 as part of his thriving mill operation. The two-story stone portion appears far grander than a typically simple miller's cottage, indicating that Janney himself probably lived there. The interior three-room floor plan of Janney's house is one that is often referred to as the "Quaker" or "Penn" plan. The brick wing was added before 1803, when owner Asa Moore (c.1770-1823) insured the house for the staggering sum of $2,300. The brick addition converted Janney's three-room plan into the fashionable center-hall plan. Twentieth century owners added onto the rear of the dwelling. A one-story stone wing that abutted the west end was demolished in the early 1900s; it may be the source for some of the lovely stone walls you see along Bond Street.

Moxley Hall

Lewis V. Shuey (1832-1911) erected this house in the 1860s after returning from the California gold fields. He eventually sold the farm to the Mock family, who named it Moxley Hall and lived here for more than 40 years. The house has a center-passage plan with interior end chimneys and a service wing to the rear.

James Lewis House

This lot stood vacant until at least 1875. Butchers Row takes its name from a slaughterhouse that stood between this house and the Mahlon Myers house. In 1877 James Lewis, (born c.1845) an African-American veteran of the Civil War, purchased the property and built this frame house. It has a two-story, two-room plan with a service addition.

Hollingsworth-Lee House

The land on which this two-story brick house sits was part of the mill tract for many years. By 1827 Samuel Gover was living in a brick dwelling here. Around the time of the Civil War, Robert Hollingsworth (1814-1871), a Quaker schoolteacher from Frederick County, Virginia, bought the house from the Govers. During the war, Confederates seized Hollingsworth and fellow townsman William Williams and marched them to Richmond's Castle Thunder Prison, intending to trade them for two Loudoun residents held by the North. The interior floor plan of this dwelling is unusual: the door opens into a passage that runs the depth of the house; a single room is to the right of the passage. The frame addition at the rear succeeded an earlier one in the 1950s or 1960s.

Israel Griffith House

More coming

Sunday

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.

Samuel Steer House

This house was built during the Civil War and used briefly as a hospital. Samuel Steer (1811-1883) purchased the dwelling in 1867. For his family's safety, he had moved into the village during the war from his farm south of town. Steer, like several of his Quaker neighbors, spent time in a Confederate prison because of his Union sympathies. During the war his daughter, Sarah Ann, co-edited the pro-Union Waterford News with her young neighbors Lida and Lizzie Dutton. After the war Sarah Ann Steer was the first teacher at the new school for African Americans just down the street.

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 Livery Stable

This structure served as a stable at least as early as 1851. Elbert Divine (1874-1966) constructed the red barn to the rear in 1921 as an expansion of Edgar Beans' (1882-1957) livery operation. A slaughterhouse (no longer standing) on the site served the meat market. Today the barn houses exhibits for the annual fair and the livery stable is a residence.

The Graham House

Leven Smallwood (c.1765-1812) built the right side three-bay section of this house shortly after his 1810 purchase of the lot. He built a one-and-a-half-story brick structure on a stone foundation. A one-story brick addition was later added to the left of the original structure. Quakers Isaac Walker (1781-1851) and Jacob Mendenhall (1788-1822) operated a dry goods store here as early as 1816. Walker purchased the property after it was auctioned in 1833. Robert Graham, a veteran of the Loudoun Rangers, bought the building in 1879 and used it for his carriage painting business. He removed the half-story of brick from the right side and added a full second story of German siding to the entire edifice. The frame second floor was originally accessible only via exterior stairs on the left end.