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Second Street 8
Virtual Walking Tour
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.
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Sunnyside
Sunnyside was built in the early 1850s by John B. Dutton
(1816-1892), a Quaker who rented John Williams' old store
space on the present post office site for his own dry goods
business. The Confederates forced Dutton out of Waterford
during the war, so he lived in Point of Rocks, Maryland,
visiting home when he could evade the pickets. He served
as Postmaster in Point of Rocks, thereby keeping Waterford
in touch with the outside world. (Mail had been suspended
to seceded states.) Dutton's daughters, Lida and Lizzie,
co-edited The Waterford News with Sarah Steer. After the
war they married former Union soldiers from New York and
Indiana who had passed through the village.
The front porch, which had been removed at some point, was
rebuilt in the late 1990s.
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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. |
Old Insurance Building
This was the third home of the Loudoun Mutual Fire Insurance
Company, which purchased this site from the Hough family
in 1901. The company demolished the old Hough house and hired
Mr. Poole of Dunn Loring, Virginia, to build the new office,
garage, and retaining walls. The entire cost was $5,524.49.
The company remained in this building until 1949, when it
moved to its present office on High Street. Today it is used
as a home. |
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