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Cobblestones, Confederates and country wagons
Waterford Fair draws national attention: Perhaps it is because Waterford was founded in 1733 and is still standing, complete with sheep in the meadow and cows in the corn ?and real people living real lives in houses that date back to the Quaker village's earliest days.
Perhaps it is because Waterford is one of only three National Historic Landmark Districts in the entire United States.
Perhaps it is because the judges for its art exhibits and craft shows are tough, and to have one's work included will be a selling point for this year's 155 artists and crafters from across the country.
Whatever the reason, the Waterford Homes Tour and Crafts Exhibit has become one of the events that has received and is continuing to receive support from the entire Washington metropolitan area and fairgoers from all over the country.
Proof of its reputation for excellence and for fun can be found in the list of communities that have agreed to sell tickets and hang posters promoting the fair. These areas include Washington, D.C., as well as Bethesda, Germantown and Rockville in Maryland. In Virginia, there are outlets for tickets in Alexandria, Burke, Leesburg, Manassas, McLean, Middleburg, Tysons Corner, Warrenton and Winchester.
This tiny little village of cobblestoned streets and hundreds-of-years-old trees has people from all over the country setting aside the first weekend in October every year to visit, to view and to value once again the rich history of the area.
The fair
Fran Holmbraker of the Waterford Foundation is this year's chairman of the fair committee. She was asked if she could estimate just how far some had come to be a part of the jewel in the crown of the Waterford Foundation.
"For the last two years, we've had volunteers who sit and count and note the license plates," Holmbraker said. "We have license plates from 34 states other than Virginia."
Those 34 states include California, Florida, Alabama, Maine, Kansas, Colorado, Washington state, New Mexico, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, Arizona, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Oregon.
"There are probably even more because some people come and stay in a hotel and rent a car," Holmbraker said. "Some visit with relatives."
The numbers of those who walk through these carefully maintained and restored homes and streets of history number between 25,000 and 30,000 each year, Holmbraker said, though bad weather can lower the numbers.
"But we've had our tried and true people who know the fair and came with their boots on when it was raining," Holmbraker said. "... There is also a core group that comes especially on Friday, the shoppers and the bus groups. Many come to do their Christmas shopping and to get first dibs on all the crafts."
The lifeblood of the fair, Holmbraker said, is the 155 craftspeople, all of whom are very carefully juried.
"They are tops in their craft," Holmbraker said. "They are known on a national level."
The fair had its beginning 65 years ago with crafters.
"There was a little gathering of craftspeople," Holmbraker said. "The buildings were deteriorating, and when the [Waterford] Foundation was formed in 1943, it tried to find a way to rehabilitate the crumbling structures. The first thing they did to raise money was to have a very small craft show. The heart of it has always been the crafts."
In addition, there are two art competitions, with the painting entries on exhibit in the Red Barn and photography in the Second Street Chair Factory. The Art Mart is close by and is an outlet for the sale of artwork.
There are also the houses on the home tour. Holmbraker indicated that for many, this is the drawing card. This year, she said, there are 14 homes on the tour.
"People who know a particular house come back if that house is on the tour," Holmbraker said. "One lady called each year to find out if a particular house was open."
Sometimes, residents not expecting to be on the tour find that they are.
"Several people have said, 'I know it's not open, but could we just come through anyway?' The owners of the houses go out of their way to accommodate them," Holmbraker said. "... And that's okay. Those three days we give to the fair, which is one of the charms I think."
There will be short re-enactments at the Second Street School, showing visitors what it was like to attend a one-room schoolhouse in the 1800s.
Revolutionary War militia camps will be set up throughout the village, and a fife and drum corps will march. Civil War soldiers re-enact a battle.
Other entertainment will include a wide variety of musical performances.
Children will have the opportunity to view craft demonstrations, watch a magician and a mime, and ride a country wagon filled with hay.
One of the raffles this year will be for a 7-by-8-foot canvas floor cloth. A floor canvas is a heavy-duty canvas treated with gesso and then painted. The other item to be raffled is a coordinating mirror with a stained-glass frame.
The history
Waterford was founded about 1733 along Catoctin Creek by Amos Janney, a Quaker from Bucks County, Pa. Known as Janney's Mill until the 1780s, the early commercial center then became the village of Waterford.
The Waterford Foundation's Web site draws from "Loudoun Discovered," the work of historian Eugene Scheel, to explain how the village got its names:
"Waterford had two or three names in colonial times; Janney's Mill, Fairfax, and Milltown. While the first two names are part of the historical record, the third's textural appearance is found first in 1915, the anonymous writer asserting that 'Mill Town' was a name for the village in its founding era."
Scheel's research shows that an Irish shoemaker by the name of Thomas Moore had emigrated from Waterford (or from near Waterford) in Ireland. He named the village for the place of his birth.
Contact the writer at ecarlton@timespapers.com
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