Written by Debbie Robison; Edited by Larisa Epatko
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The story of Waterford can be told hand-in-hand with the story of America. The impact of religious revivals, manufacturing innovations, slavery, economic depressions, and laws that governed free Black people all touched this village. The individual histories of each home, shop, barn, and outbuilding, as well as the people who lived here, are all part of a larger story. And that is, in part, what makes Waterford so special.
Establishing the village of Waterford
The village — located 47 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. — was founded ca. 1784 by Joseph Janney, a Quaker businessman formerly from Pennsylvania, who offered lots for sale and lease near a water-powered grist mill and sawmill. The land where the village was built was originally settled by Quakers, members of the Society of Friends, when John Mead purchased 703 acres in 1733. This was during the time of the Great Awakening, a religious revival in the 1730s and 1740s that led to an increase in religious conviction.
Other Quakers soon followed Mead and settled in the area where they found religious tolerance as well as fertile, well-watered soil. They farmed tobacco, raised families and established a Quaker meeting. During colonial rule, tobacco was shipped to Great Britain, which regulated and restricted trade. Once the flour trade opened to the British West Indies, grist mills were established along streams throughout the area, including the mill built by Mahlon Janney on Kittocton (now Catoctin) Creek ca. 1762.
Businesses start to take root
The village began with a dry goods store, saddlery, cabinet shop, tannery and blacksmith shop. The store did not prosper since farmers and millers, who were store patrons, struggled to find international buyers for their goods after the Revolutionary War. This was because, at the start of the new nation, America was only a confederation of states without a federal constitution to provide collective bargaining power for international trade agreements.
Despite this hurdle, the other businesses succeeded, with young apprentices providing much of the labor while learning valuable skills. In time, former apprentices and employees of these first manufacturing enterprises started their own businesses and purchased lots, along with others, in the expanding village.
Freeing the enslaved
The American Revolution heightened the ideals of religious liberty and freedom, which sparked the Virginia General Assembly to enact a law in 1782 allowing any person to emancipate his slaves. During this Second Great Awakening, a number of local Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists freed their slaves, joining the Quakers who had disavowed slavery prior to the war.
Free Black people settled in the area, possibly attracted by job opportunities and a willingness of the Quaker population to assist them, establish store accounts and sell them lots. Some of the non-Quaker proprietors, particularly the tavern keepers, had enslaved Black people work in their establishments.
A Quaker commitment to education
Pre-Civil War education in Waterford varied depending on if you were a White person, free Black person, or an enslaved person. Early on, some free Black children learned to read and write as part of their apprentice agreement. In 1819, Virginia outlawed allowing enslaved people to meet at schools to learn to read and write, and then made educating free Black people illegal in 1831 in response to increased abolitionism in the north.
The Quakers in town were devoted to education and had built a schoolhouse in 1805 on the meeting house grounds. In 1818, Virginia created a literary fund to pay for the education of poor students. The fund helped pay for teachers in Waterford as early as 1818 when William Adams of Waterford was teaching. In 1822, three Waterford residents were paid for teaching: Jacob Mendenhall, who operated an academy in Waterford, Robert Braden, Jr., and Ann Ball.
The village ebbs and flows
In 1801, the village officially became a town with the ability to lay off land into lots and streets. This enabled the town to expand beyond the existing Main Street, up what in the early days was called Federal Hill.
The town continued to grow and fill with tradesmen, tavern keepers and craftsmen who made furniture, hats, shoes, saddles and clothing. The building trade was so busy that a second water-powered sawmill was built off Balls Run to churn out even more lumber for the housing boom. Most of the new houses were constructed of brick, likely made at the brick manufactory that was established in a meadow by the mill race.
The pace of building slowed to a crawl after Thomas Jefferson enacted the Embargo of 1807 that prevented merchant ships from trading in foreign ports. This resulted in an economic depression and the financial ruin of the Waterford grist mill, which relied on foreign trade. Building in town resurged once the embargo was lifted in 1809.
Changes during the Industrial Revolution
Spurred by new innovations in America’s first Industrial Revolution, a woolen factory was established at the south end of town. This corner of Waterford would come to be a manufacturing hub where blacksmiths, carriage makers, wheelwrights and machinists worked at their anvils. Down the street, the nearby sawmill operation added machinery for a plaster mill and clover mill to foster increased local agricultural yields.
After the War of 1812, the town greatly expanded around new streets and alleys laid out in a grid pattern during America’s 1815-1819 economic speculative boom. To support the growth, a bank was established briefly in Waterford before the state required it to close.
Brick dwellings were constructed in the “New Addition,” the grist mill was replaced with a larger three-story brick mill, and a commodious three-story brick house with a lower-level store was built in the center of town – – right before everything came to a halt with the 1819 banking panic and years-long depression.
The proprietors of the Waterford Mill and the large stone tavern were forced to sell their businesses to meet their financial obligations. The long economic recovery, recession, and depression that followed stalled most growth in the town, though industrial manufacturing of agricultural implements continued to evolve.
A period of American business expansion from 1844-1856 included the establishment of a fire insurance company and construction of a few more houses and the Baptist Church edifice in Waterford. A fraternal benevolent association, Evergreen Lodge No. 51 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was organized in 1847. They purchased a three-story brick house on Main Street where they held meetings and transacted business.
The Civil War and Reconstruction
But soon, the Civil War commenced. Men from Waterford and other strongly Unionist areas of north Loudoun formed the Independent Loudoun Virginia Rangers, a federal cavalry company under the leadership of local miller Samuel C. Means. At least one free Black man from Waterford joined the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, while a few more served in other Union units, sometimes informally. A handful of White residents voted for secession, though, and several fought for the Confederacy. The town was beset by raids, including a bloody skirmish at the Baptist Church, and intermittent occupation by Confederate troops.
Post-war reconstruction benefited the Black population when they constructed a school for their children, aided by the federal Freedman’s Bureau and a Philadelphia Quaker society.
Little growth followed until, bit-by-bit, Waterford started to shake off its stagnant economy. In 1867, passenger railroad service from Alexandria arrived at nearby Clarke’s Gap station, and two years later, a daily stage line ran between Waterford and the depot. This benefited Waterford homeowners who earned additional funds by boarding urban-area residents in the summer months.
Waterford gets on the map
In 1875, the town of Waterford was reincorporated and a map of the town was created that advertised businesses, including several women-owned establishments. The new charter allowed the town to collect a town tax, make public improvements and have use of the county jail.
By the time industries fueled America’s business expansion from 1879-1893, Waterford carpenters were already quite busy. New types of specialty stores, such as grocery stores, drug stores, and tin shops opened; several in new buildings. And several Victorian-style homes were constructed on available town lots to house the shopkeepers and clerks.
This period of growth coincided with the Third Great Awakening. Increases in church attendance resulted in the return of a Presbyterian congregation to Waterford and construction of a Methodist church edifice for White congregants on the hill and for Black congregants near the mill.
The temperance movement, which sought to limit and then ban the consumption of alcoholic beverages, found new life in Waterford. Advocates met in the Temperance Hall above the Chair Factory. Other community activities at the time included attendance at literary society meetings held in local homes.
Electricity use and innovation
Waterford saw remarkable changes during the Second Industrial Revolution. In 1884 you could place a telephone call at Dr. Connell’s store in Waterford to Clarke’s Gap after lines were run between the two places. Or you could receive electric therapy treatment from Dr. Connell with the use of his Electric Battery apparatus. Mr. J. F. Dodd improved the Waterford Mill by putting in machinery for making roller process flour. And in 1914, E. H. Beans, Waterford’s enterprising liveryman, acquired an automobile.
The type of employment available in Waterford also changed. By 1910, there were no longer any Waterford craftsmen making chairs, furniture, saddles, or shoes, which by then were made in urban factories. However, there was a stenographer, electrician, and a “phone girl” working in the Central office.
The impact of urbanization
The Industrial Revolution led to an increase in the pace of urbanization. The population of cities swelled as employment opportunities in factories and department stores rapidly grew. Farmers began converting fields into dairy farms to supply milk to local creameries that made butter for the burgeoning Washington, D. C. market.
Kingsley Creamery built a creamery on the Waterford town lot in 1885, but its duration was short-lived. Local creameries were made obsolete by new inventions that allowed city factories to obtain cream directly from farmers.
Local water-powered grist mills were also declining. Engineering advances in mill technology enabled large flour factories to be built on more substantial and reliable waterways.
Because of urbanization and changes in manufacturing, both White and Black residents of Waterford moved to cities, notably Washington, D.C. When they left, many of the older structures on Main Street were purchased by Black families, greatly increasing home ownership for Waterford’s Black residents.
During the Great Depression, buildings were purchased by wealthy preservationists who wanted to revive Waterford into a “Little Williamsburg.” Colonial-revival fever struck Waterford. Buildings were stabilized, altered, and “restored” with hand-hewn beams and colonial-style door hardware.
Preserving the village of Waterford
The Waterford Foundation, an early preservation organization, was formed in 1943 to encourage interest in restoring the town to an earlier period. Fundraising fairs featured early crafts made by local artisans and home tours. The village and tour buildings were provided with histories, often with dates erring on the side of the colonial period, never mind that Waterford was founded after the American Revolutionary War.
In time, White families began moving to Waterford in search of post-World War II housing, while the Black population dwindled as the younger generation sought opportunities elsewhere.
The national historic preservation movement took hold after the enactment of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 that established funding and guidelines for preservation programs. Waterford was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970. Many of Waterford’s historic structures were placed under easements with the state in the 1970s to ensure appropriate preservation treatment.
The Waterford Foundation continues its work to preserve historic the historic properties, including those owned by the Foundation, and to further the understanding of the history of the village in support of its education mission.
Debbie Robison writes about Northern Virginia history. You can read more of her articles on her website.
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