Lovettsville history
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From Lovettsville to Missouri
By Ken Weyand[i] My great-grandfather, Joseph Miller, was born Sept. 19, 1802, in northern Loudoun County, Virgina, in what was then known as “The German Settlement.” This area settled as…
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Who was Tankerville? Part VI: The Slow but Certain End of the Feudal Land System in North Loudoun
By Edward Spannaus At the end of the American War of Independence, the Earl of Tankerville’s family was still anxious. Land was everything for the British nobility, yet the Tankerville land…
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Press Release: Spring 2024 Mini-Course
Press Release What: Lovettsville Historical Society Spring 2024 Mini-Course—Where We Live: The German Settlement When: Monday nights May 20th, May 27th (Memorial Day), June 3rd and June10th, 2024 from 6:30-9:30 p.m. Where: Meeting behind the Lovettsville Museum, 4 E. Pennsylvania Avenue,…
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Who Was Tankerville? — Part V: The Manor System Nears its End
By Edward Spannaus In Part IV of this series, we learned how some of the tenants on the Tankerville lands in the eastern part of the German Settlement began to…
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Who was Tankerville? — Part IV: The Tenants Speak
By Edward Spannaus In Part III of this series, we “listened in,” so to speak, on discussions between the 4th Earl of Tankerville (Charles Bennett), his brother Henry A. Bennett,…
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Who was Tankerville? Part III: The Revolution Puts Tankerville Lands at Risk
By Edward Spannaus In Part II of this series, we learned that the Tankerville lands, as Loyalist properties, had been “sequestered” during the Revolutionary War, and saw how the Dowager…
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Who was Tankerville? Part II: The Dowager and the General
By Edward Spannaus (Part I of this series, updated, may be found here.) In June 1783, as the Treaty of Paris to end the Revolutionary War was being finalized, the…
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The British Lords of the Manor in the German Settlement: Who was Tankerville?
By Edward Spannaus [Updated December 17. 2023] (This is one of an occasional series of articles concerning the impact of the American Revolution on the Lovettsville area, formerly known as…
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Virginia’s Religious Freedom Law: Were the Lovettsville churches legal?
By Edward Spannaus Up through the time of the American Revolution, Lovettsville’s two churches were in a legal limbo. There was but one Established Church in the Virginia colony: that…
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Then and Now – The Buildings at 57 East Broad Way
The Lovettsville Historical Society is pleased to announce our partnership with the Town of Lovettsville to provide snippets of Lovettsville history for their Throwback Thursday (TBT) Facebook posts. A theme…
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Fire Guts Historic Outbuilding at Luther Potterfield House
By Edward Spannaus In the early morning of June 19, 2023, an outbuilding known as the “meat house” on the old Luther Potterfield property on Lovettsville’s main street (now 32…
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The Henshaw letters, Part III
March 1865 — Aftermath of the Union Encampment. A message from the “Vine Clad Cottage” By Edward Spannaus In January and February 1865, Lovettsville was the site of large winter…
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Grace Anderson Smith: A Woman Who Spread Love and Kindness Throughout Her Life
By: Claudette Lewis Bard When I began studying my family history, I started looking at census records in order to get facts and statistical data. Some of the information gathered…
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Lovettsville’s Isaac Slater: From Hangman’s Noose to Capitol Hill
By Edward Spannaus Isaac Cooper Slater was born and raised in the Lovettsville area, but spent most of his adult life in Washington, D.C., as did his second cousin, Luther…
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Ray Anderson’s German Great-Grandson Responds to Newsletter Article
By Claudette Lewis Bard The power of the Internet never ceases to amaze me. Often in the news, we hear about someone’s research leading them to a discovery that would…
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Letters from Lovettsville: The Life of Dr. John James Henshaw
By Doria R. Owen The shoe box marked “Letters” had been silently waiting atop a stack of forgotten boxes for over ten years. Once opened, the story they tell…
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Saving Mount Pleasant Baptist Church
By Lori Kimball A physical testament to the strength and resilience of Loudoun’s African American community can be found in the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church and Cemetery, located at the base of…
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George’s Mill Farm: Memories of the Past
Presented by Fran Wire to the Lovettsville Historical Society, May 20, 2018 Editor’s note: Following is the text of Fran Wire’s talk, presented as part of the Lovettsville Historical Society’s…
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Fifth grader Gwendolyn Hanger wins LHS History Award
Fifth grader Gwendolyn Hanger was the winner of the Lovettsville Historical Society’s annual History Award, conferred upon a deserving student as part of the Fifth Grade Farewell Ceremony. The ceremony…
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When Anthony Wayne Marched Through Loudoun
The 241st anniversary of General Anthony Wayne’s crossing of the Potomac with his Pennsylvania troops was commemorated on June 4 at the “Spirit of Loudoun” Revolutionary War Memorial. The event…
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Looking for our Palatine German ancestors — Part II: A Visit to New York’s Schoharie Valley
By: Edward Spannaus If you have visited the Lovettsville Museum, you may have seen a display called “How We Got Here: The Palatine Emigration to America, and to the German…
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The Schoolhouse on South Loudoun Street
The house at the point where South Loudoun and Locust Streets intersect, has recently undergone a renovation, as many have noticed. This building has a storied history. It was cited…
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Volunteer Updating Museum Inventory
Since early March, visitors to the Lovettsville Museum may have noticed a young woman quietly working with items from the Museum collection, entering descriptions in a laptop computer, and photographing each…
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Five More Revolutionary War Patriots Honored
Five more Revolutionary War Patriots were honored in an April 10 ceremony at the New Jerusalem Lutheran Church Cemetery in Lovettsville. The grave-marking event was sponsored by three local chapters…
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Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery Address Board of Supervisors
Representatives of the Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery and the Lovettsville Historical Society addressed the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors on April 19, urging the Board to take…
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Lovettsville’s Doctors over the Years: Medical Ledgers Added to Museum Collection
Physician ledgers from the 1920s and 1930s were recently found during the renovation of the Rollins house at 30 East Broad Way, which is being carried out by Fred Lee…
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Charlotte and Emanuel
By Lori Hinterleiter Kimball There are times when doing historical research that something – a person, an event, a reference – grabs the researcher’s attention and beckons to be investigated. …
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John G. Lewis Memorial Bridge Rehabilitation
John G. Lewis Memorial Bridge Rehabilitation: Preserving a Loudoun County Historical Landmark By: Clare Matheny [slideshow_deploy id=’4828′] If you have driven on Milltown Road, Taylorstown Road, or Loyalty Road in…
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The Luther Potterfield Stable, and The Block That Was Too Big for Itself
Some of you may have noticed the restoration work being done on the red barn at the corner of Locust Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. That structure was once a livery…
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The family of W.S. Seitz, builder of the Ruse bank barn
Although the Seitzes were not one of the pre-Revolution German families in Lovettsville, the family’s roots were thoroughly grounded in Pennsylvania German and Swiss immigrants. They came from Pennsylvania…
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“A Most Excellent Barn:” A Pennsylvania German Barn in Lovettsville
Editor’s Introduction: In reviewing the research in Lori Kimball’s article on the Ruse-Seitz barn, and comparing the barn to the Ruse log house (built around 1876) which we covered in…
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Our August 2021 Newletter is now available!
Click here for our August issue, featuring the American Revolution — with coverage of the July 24 Patriot grave-marking and materials from our 2011 lecture on the German Settlement in…
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Outline of the German role in the Revolutionary War
Outline of the German role in the Revolutionary War (The following are notes prepared by Edward Spannaus for his presentation in the September 11, 2011 lecture on “The German Settlement…
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Video of July 24 Patriot Grave Marking at New Jerusalem Lutheran Church, Lovettsville
You can watch a YouTube video of the complete grave-marking ceremony here.
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Our June Newsletter is out!
Our June 2021 newsletter is now available online, with stories about the Taylorstown Mill, the Short Hill’s largest known cave, and how we have discovered more Revolutionary War Patriots in…
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More Revolutionary War Patriots Identified in Lovettsville
We have located additional Lovettsville Revolutionary War Patriots, thanks to a database of burials compiled by the Virginia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (VASSAR). This includes three…
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The Creation of Mount Sinai Church and School, as reported by the Loudoun Telephone, 1883-1887
by Edward Spannaus (The Loudoun Telephone was a Republican Party-oriented newspaper published in Hamilton, Virginia, in the late 19th century. The following are news reports about the establishment of the Mount…
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“Know All Men by These Presents:” Taverns and Houses of Entertainment in Old Lovettsville
By Lori Hinterleiter Kimball We are fortunate to have access to many restaurants, B&Bs, and pubs in Loudoun County. Of course, they are not new things! Ordinaries, taverns, and…
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Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery conduct clearing and cleaning of abandoned burial ground at Little Britain
Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery gathered at the cemetery site on April 10 to begin the process of clearing part of the property in anticipation of eventually clearing…
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Robert Booth’s Legacy: Early Dutchman’s Creek Pioneer
(Updated 3/14/21) By Harold Gladstone Introduction Five years before Thomas, 6th Lord Fairfax granted 17,296 acres of land Northwest of Lovettsville to his recently appointed land agent and cousin Colonel…
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Honoring Those Interred at the Mount Sinai Cemetery — Part IV
By Claudette Lewis Bard This month we are continuing our series about those interred at Mount Sinai Cemetery. Among those discussed will be a family who were among the several…
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The Ruse/Reed log farmhouse collapses during demolition
In our last issue, we reported on the history of the Ruse-Reed homestead on the Lovettsville Community Park site, and how the County was planning on demolishing the old farmhouse.…
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Honoring Those Interred at the Mount Sinai Cemetery — Part III
By Claudette Lewis Bard This month we are continuing our series about those interred at Mount Sinai Cemetery. Among those discussed are an early civil rights activist and registered voter…
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Linden Hall establishes conservation easement
By Bart Hodgson Linden Hall Farm, LLC is pleased to announce the recording of a Conservation Easement in the land records of Loudoun County, Virginia. In doing so, Linden…
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Our January 2021 Newsletter is Here!
Our January 2021 Newsletter is now available — with news and updates about the Lovettsville Historical Society, history features on the Ruse/Reed farmstead on the Lovettsville Community Park property, more…
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Honoring Those Interred at Mount Sinai Cemetery — Part II
by Claudette Lewis Bard In December’s newsletter, we remembered several Lovettsville residents who are interred at the Mount Sinai Cemetery. As we acknowledged, there could be as many as 100…
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The Georges, the Johnsons, and related families in Lovettsville
We asked Sam Kroiz, proprietor of the George’s Mill Farm Store, to tell us about Charles Johnson’s relation to George’s Mill and various Lovettsville families. Charles Johnson was Sam’s third…
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Charles W. Johnson: The Spy Who Walked a Crooked Line
By Edward Spannaus The Charles Johnson who featured in the fracas following a Republican event in Waterford in November 1888 was no stranger to conflict – be it of the…
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Honoring Those Interred at Mount Sinai Cemetery
by Claudette Lewis Bard In our October newsletter, we featured an article entitled “Hidden History: The Mount Sinai Church and Cemetery at ‘Little Britain.’” The article chronicled the once-thriving…
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Remembering Private Samuel Benjamin Timbers
In the October 2020 Lovettsville Historical Society Newsletter, there was a story entitled “Hidden History: Mount Sinai Church and Cemetery at ‘Little Britain.’” My family has a connection to the…
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New Jerusalem’s Gold Star Flag
New Jerusalem’s Gold Star Flag To accompany the dedication of the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument at the south entrance to Lovettsville on September 11, we thought it would be…
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Hidden History: Mount Sinai Church and Cemetery at “Little Britain”
Anyone passing through the intersection of Mountain Road and Britain Road southwest of the town of Lovettsville, would have no idea that this was once the center of a vibrant…
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Part II of “The Right to Vote: An Ancestral Story
By Claudette Lewis Bard Click here for Part I Last month, we briefly chronicled the lives of 37 African-American men whose names were included in the “List of Colored…