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PF_Trail

Waterford Bingo!

July 31, 2025 by Abigail Zurfluh

Hey parents and kids! Looking for a free and fun way to explore Waterford? Try out our new Waterford bingo! Take a walk around Waterford and keep an eye out for different parts of the trail, plants and animals, and different architectural features to get bingo!

How it Works:

  • Print out one of the themed bingo cards below, or pick them up at the Waterford Old School when the Foundation offices are open (T-F 10am-2pm)
  • Take a walk through Waterford and mark down what you see (everything on the list can be seen from the public right of way and the trails!)
  • Once you get bingo, print out a certificate (linked here) or send your bingo card to oldschool@waterfordfoundation.org to get a Waterford Adventurer certificate! You can also bring your card up to the Old School when the Foundation offices are open to get your certificate!

Bingo Cards!

Phillips Farm Trail!
Architecture (level One)!
architecture (level two)!
Plants and Animals!
Waterford Landmarks!

Happy exploring!

Filed Under: PF_Trail, tours Tagged With: kids activities

15. The Mill Dam

June 26, 2023 by Julie Goforth

Consider how laborers managed to collect, move, and place such large boulders with no more than human and animal muscle. The dam once stood a few feet higher—enough to raise the level of the impoundment more than 12 feet above the outflow from the wheel at the mill. In 1908 at the near end of the dam, miller William M. Fling signed his name in wet concrete he used to cap and reinforce the dam.A bit beyond the dam, in 1814, African American Benjamin Kins and wife Letitia bought two acres spanning the creek and built a house. They were among the first black families in the area to own their own land. Benjamin had been born a slave in Calvert County, Maryland, about 1770, but owner John Talbott freed him when the Quakers abol-ished the use of slaves in 1776. Talbott Farm remains today just southeast of the village.

Filed Under: PF_Trail

14. White Oak

June 26, 2023 by Julie Goforth

Its long, low branches indicate that it did not grow in a forest. Local villagers have nicknamed it “Old John” in memory of John Hough (1720-1797), a Waterford Quaker who owned thousands of acres and a number of mills in Loudoun. White oaks were favored by early settlers for building, baskets, barrels, flooring, furni-ture, and many other uses. Native Americans made flour from the acorns.

Filed Under: PF_Trail

13. Green Ash

June 26, 2023 by Julie Goforth

The large tree here is a green ash, an aging survivor of the 19th century. It and other ashes on the farm face an uncertain future with the recent arrival in the Washington area of the emerald ash borer, a destructive beetle native to Asia.

Filed Under: PF_Trail

12. Millrace

June 26, 2023 by Julie Goforth

Here a small wet weather stream intersects the old hand-dug millrace, visible from the path at the left. Hikers can follow the dry bed of the race back to Ball’s Run at the site of “The Chute.” This channel, some two-thirds of a mile long, in all, was dug by hand, probably around 1760. Etched in the cement cap of the low stone containment wall here, is the date October 28, 1928, the initials of the last miller, William S. Smoot, and those of his 17-year-old helper, John E. Divine, who later helped preserve much of Waterford’s history.

Filed Under: PF_Trail

11. Invasive Plants

June 26, 2023 by Julie Goforth

Invasive plants such as multiflora rose, tree of heaven, autumn olive, Japanese barberry, and Canada thistle have been encroaching into the Phillips Farm environment for some time and are overtaking habitat of native flora. The tallest tree in front of you is a tree of heaven. The Management Plan for the Phillips Farm includes efforts to control the growth of invasive species, particularly in this area.

Filed Under: PF_Trail

10. Family Farm

June 26, 2023 by Julie Goforth

For 150 years this property flourished as a diversified family farm. In 1850 it produced wheat, corn, oats, beef, milk, butter, wool, hay, horses, pork, poultry, eggs, fruit and honey, as well as potatoes and other garden crops. The small white barn you see on the hillside shelters the machinery used today for haying the surrounding fields.

Filed Under: PF_Trail

9. Ball’s Run

June 26, 2023 by Julie Goforth

Ball’s Run, which here joins Catoctin Creek, once powered two Waterford mills a few hundred yards up-stream. But it presented a problem for owners of the mill at the foot of Main Street, who had dug a channel or millrace to carry water from a dam farther upstream on Catoctin Creek and needed to get that water past the Run, which flowed at a lower level. In the early years they probably built a wooden trough or aqueduct to carry the water over Ball’s Run. By the early 1900s, though, they had dammed the Run to bring it up to the level of the millrace. Then, by way of sluice gates, they could divert its water into the race to augment the flow to the mill in dry seasons. The over-flow was known as “The Chute,” and below the dam was a favorite swimming hole until time and repeated floods took their toll. Today only a stone buttress or two and scattered chunks of concrete mark the site of the dam. A short path to the left takes you to the spot.

Filed Under: PF_Trail

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