By John Souders, originally printed in the 2018 Waterford Fair Booklet
The Waterford Foundation: The Early Years—1943-1970
Each year thousands visit Waterford and marvel at a wonderfully intact remnant of early America. This year the village celebrates the Waterford Foundation, the far-sighted organization that for 75 years has worked to preserve and share that treasure. Its successes have been neither easy nor inevitable.
By the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, the old town was a near shambles, the hollowed out remnant of a long slow decline after the Civil War. Many locals doubted that the dilapidated buildings could or even should be saved from inevitable collapse. One charming old structure on Main Street, the final home of a former slave, was taken down for its stone, which was hauled to Leesburg.
The Pink House (40174 Main Street), originally an early 19th-century tavern, escaped a similar fate only because its brick proved too soft for reuse. As one dismayed newcomer put it, “Most every building looked as though it was about to fall apart … It seemed a truly deserted village.”
The one sign of life was the work of brothers Edward and Leroy Chamberlin, who had begun to repair and resell a number of deteriorating residences in and around town. The Chamberlins were an old Waterford Quaker family that fortunately had the means to tackle the job in the depression-ravaged community. But Edward died in 1940, and their momentum threatened to stall.
Soon, though, a handful of concerned locals and a few recent arrivals came together and resolved to build on the Chamberlins’ progress. In 1943 they were incorporated by Virginia as the Waterford Foundation, Inc. As a first step the founders organized themselves into a board of directors (there were no other members) and selected officers, including the first president, Allen B. McDaniel (1879-1965), an accomplished engineer with a firm in Washington. McDaniel had discovered Waterford, bought the old Quaker meetinghouse, and—with a thorough renovation—made it his home.
But where to begin? The new organization had no money and no real plan other than a desire “to preserve the historic buildings” and “to increase the public’s knowledge of life and work in an early American rural community.” As a tentative first step, the Foundation pulled together $825 to buy a dilapidated house that, fittingly, had been built circa 1800 for Mahlon Janney son of the town’s founder. They made necessary repairs and resold it in 1945 for $1,500. The organization would repeat this pattern of rescue and resale many times in the decades that followed, a bootstrap technique that was largely self-funding.
But not all needy buildings could or should be resold. A prime example was the defunct old mill, the iconic structure in the village. The Foundation was able to purchase that building in 1944 only because the Fadeley family stepped in with a $2,000 donation. Then, casting about for more sustainable ways to continue its work, the Foundation hit on the idea of holding an exhibition of arts and crafts and charging a nominal fee to attend. The success of the first such demonstration in 1944 exceeded the board’s hopes, and the “Waterford Fair” rapidly grew to a major cultural event in Loudoun and beyond, furthering the organization’s educational mission and providing a vital source of funding. [The Foundation will explore the history of the Fair in greater detail next year, the 75th anniversary of its modest beginning.]
Over the years the Foundation has confronted many challenges, some of its own making. An early and persistent one was a charge of elitism, coupled with secrecy. To help allay concerns, the board opened membership to anyone interested. But as president McDaniel put it in 1944, there was no certainty the people would “cooperate through a form of membership involving a nominal yearly contribution without some definite benefits or returns to them personally.” On that score he needn’t have worried, but suspicions about the Foundation’s motives long persisted in some quarters.
A greater threat to the long-term success of the Waterford Foundation arose from an unexpected source: the accelerating growth of Loudoun County. The population of the county had remained remarkably stable between 1800 and 1950, and few foresaw what would come next. Only belatedly did the board recognize that preservation of the mill village could not succeed without saving the green space that was its historical and visual context. The threat came to the fore in 1970 when the Water Street Meadow and Schooley Mill Barn properties came on the market, opening the possibility of new construction immediately adjacent to the town. Still, not all board members thought the threat was as great as the purchase price, and there were multiple resignations when the majority opted to buy the Water Street acreage. In hindsight the wisdom of their acquisition looks much clearer.
By 1970 the work of the Waterford Foundation had acquired a national reputation as a model of grassroots preservation. It had achieved its successes in restoring buildings, protecting open spaces and celebrating early American crafts and activities with virtually no public funding. That same year, in recognition of those accomplishments, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated Waterford and its surround as a national historic landmark district, a category reserved for the likes of Mount Vernon and Independence Hall.
But the work was not finished. The Waterford Foundation has continued to protect viewsheds, maintain fragile buildings, host the annual Homes Tour and Crafts Exhibit, and develop educational programs and exhibits. The challenges since 1970 and those ahead are topics for next year’s fair booklet.
| Founding Members | ||
| Edgar H. Beans | Edgar (1882-1957), was a livestock dealer and descendant of early Waterford Quakers. | |
| Vera M. Chamberlin & son Edward M., Jr. | Vera, from New Jersey, married into an old Waterford family. Her son was at one time treasurer of the Foundation. | |
| Ellen H. & son Fenton M. Fadeley, Jr. | The Fadeleys were an early Loudoun family. They lived at Rosemont, on the Old Wheatland Road. | |
| Allen B. & Margaret B. McDaniel | Allen (1879-1965), a New England-born engineer, helped build the acclaimed Bahá´í temple near Chicago and was active in the Bahá´í faith. | |
| Douglas N. & Winifrede (Frieda) E. Myers | Doug (1896-1982), from an early Waterford family, was president of the Foundation in the 1960s. Frieda, a teacher, was from Indiana. | |
| Paul V. & Pauline (Polly) S. Rogers | The Rogers bought a farm near Waterford in 1937. Paul was a Washington attorney, Polly was from Kansas. | |
| Frederic S. & Mary Phillips Stabler | The Stablers were both of early Quaker families. They owned the Phillips Farm, where Mary was raised. | |