History

Around 1733 Amos Janney, a Quaker from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, settled beside the South Fork of Catoctin Creek, drawn by good soil and water power. His mills gave the early settlement the name Janney’s Mill; by the 1790s it was known as Waterford, after the Irish city some settlers had come from. By the 1830s about seventy houses clustered here, along with a tannery, a chairmaker, a boot maker, shops and a tavern.

Quaker opposition to slavery drew African Americans to the village, though Black and white residents attended separate churches and schools. During the Civil War the largely Unionist town saw clashes between the Union’s Loudoun Rangers and Confederate cavalry.

Commerce faded in the early 1900s, which left Waterford’s streetscape remarkably unchanged. Starting in the 1940s, residents organized the Waterford Foundation to protect it, and the village and some 1,420 acres of surrounding farmland were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. More than sixty properties now carry preservation easements. The October Waterford Fair, which marked its 80th year in 2024, and the Foundation’s living-history program in the 1867 schoolhouse keep that past in view.