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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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LHS’s Lecture Series – Lafayette’s Farewell Tour – 6/26/2022
Next in the Lovettsville Historical Society’s lecture series: “Lafayette: Our Nation’s Adopted Son and His Farewell Tour of the America He Loved” Sunday, June 26, at 2:00 p.m. In-person at…
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Our June 2022 Newsletter is out!
The June newsletter is available here, with history features, a listing of our upcoming lectures, nearby events of interest, and more.
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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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Capt. Sam Means, Founder of Loudoun Rangers, Honored at Graveside Ceremony
Captain Samuel C. Means, who commanded the Independent Loudoun Rangers during the Civil War, has finally received a U.S. government-issued headstone for his burial site, 138 years after his death…
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Remembering Lafayette’s Visit to Loudoun
By: Nancy Spannaus* One year before the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the nation will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the visit by one of the leading figures…
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Next in…
Next in the Lovettsville Historical Society’s lecture series: Lovettsville’s Hidden History:Mount Sinai Church & Cemetery Sunday, April 3, at 2:00 p.m. In-person at Lovettsville Town Council Chamber (behind the Museum)…
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Our March newsletter, the “Doctors Issue,” is now available
Our March newsletter, featuring stories about Lovettsville’s doctors of the 19th and 20th centuries, is now available here.
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“Doctors’ House” on East Broad Way will be preserved
The “Doctors’ House,” used by three local physicians for their offices from the 1890s to the 1930s, was in danger of being demolished after it was put on the market…
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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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Dr. Willard’s Journals being digitized at Lovettsville Museum
The Lovettsville Historical Society is in the process of scanning three journals and medical ledgers of Dr. James Willard, who owned the stately brick Federalist Home at 14 East Pennsylvania…
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LHS Lecture Series to resume with “The Loudouners who Challenged Thomas Jefferson”
Presented by Nancy B. Spannaus Sunday, March 13, at 2:00 p.m. In-person at Lovettsville Town Council Chamber (behind the Museum) and Online via Zoom After almost two years of suspension…
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Our February 2022 Newsletter is Ready for You to Read!
Our February 2002 Newsletter is now available, and you can read it here. And if you missed the January newsletter, it is here.
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In Memoriam: Fran Wire
The Lovettsville Historical Society is saddened by the death of Fran Wire, the proprietor of George’s Mill, who was a leader of the Historical Society for many years. Fran served…
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Bicentennial Costumes Donated to the Museum
The costumes worn by Michael and Julia Kretsinger during the 1976 Bicentennial celebration in Lovettsville have been donated to the Lovettsville Museum by their family. Susan Kretsinger Geary, pictured above, presented the costumes to…
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Linden Hall Farm barn restoration continues
Those passing by Linden Hall Farm on the Berlin Turnpike north of Lovettsville over the past year, will have noticed a “new” barn being built…
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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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Looking for our Palatine German ancestors: A short trip to New York’s Mohawk Valley
Looking for our Palatine German ancestors: A short trip to New York’s Mohawk Valley By Edward Spannaus If you have visited the Lovettsville Museum, you may have seen a display…
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The Wright brothers’ roots in the German Settlement
On Dec. 21, the Town of Hillsboro unveiled a refurbished historical marker honoring Susan Koerner Wright, the month of the pioneers of flight, Wilbur and Orville Wright. You can read…
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Aircraft Part from 1940 Lovettsville Crash Donated to Museum
[slideshow_deploy id=’4755′] A piece of machined metal from the August 31, 1940 airplane crash near Lovettsville has been donated to the Lovettsville Museum by Robert Zirkle and Carol Sue Zirkle…
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Our December 2021 Newsletter is now available
The December Newsletter has been published, and is available by clicking here.
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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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Christmas at Mount Sinai — 1886
The following reports of activities at Mount Sinai Free Will Baptist Church, located at the intersection of Mountain Road and Britain Road southwest of Lovettsville, were published in the Loudoun…
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Our November 2021 Newsletter is now available!
The LHS Newsletter for November 2021 is now out. Click here to read it.
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And you think your log house is old?
While touring the Lake Garda area in northern Italy last month, my wife Nancy and I visited the Museo Rambotti, an archeological museum in Desenzano. This museum features the prehistoric “pile dwellings” (we…
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County Supervisors to take up preservation of Mount Sinai Cemetery
Over a year after the Lovettsville Historical Society began its drive to draw public attention to the plight of the abandoned African-American cemetery on Mountain Road known as the Mount…
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Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery ask for Board of Supervisors help in preserving abandoned burial ground
On Sept. 7, representatives of the Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery participated in a virtual meeting with Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall and with staff…
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Trees Made of Stone
By Lori Hinterleiter Kimball Many cemeteries contain unusually carved or shaped gravestones, but the markers that look like tree trunks are some of the most unusual. Called by various names…
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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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Over 100 attend Revolutionary War ceremony in Lovettsville
Five Revolutionary War Patriots were honored on Saturday, July 24, at an impressive and colorful ceremony held at the New Jerusalem Lutheran Church Cemetery in Lovettsville, sponsored by the Sons…
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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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Who were the five Patriots honored on July 24?
Following are the biographies of the five Revolutionary War Patriots who were recognized in the July 24 grave-marking ceremony at New Jerusalem Lutheran Church Cemetery. Johannes (John) Axline (presented by…
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Slide Show: German Settlement Veterans of the Revolutionary War
Almost ten years ago, on September 11, 2011, the Lovettsville Historical Society presented, as part of its monthly lecture series, a presentation on the German Settlement in the Revolution. Here…
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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 July 2021 newsletter is here!
Our monthly newsletter for July 2021 has just been published. It features reports on the Museum reopening on August 3, and plans to resume our monthly lecture series, as well…
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LHS Team Brings Mount Sinai Cemetery Story to Juneteenth Celebration
The Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery, a project of the Lovettsville Historical Society, was at the Leesburg Juneteenth celebration on June 19 at Ida Lee Park. Pictured are…
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Ray and Sarah Edna Anderson: A Profile of Two of Lovettsville’s African-American Citizens
By Claudette Lewis Bard To talk about Ray Anderson is to talk about a Lovettsville legend, a highly-skilled and hard-working gentleman who was known, in the early to mid-20th century,…
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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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Emory Franklin Timbers: A Fisher of Men
By Howard Gilbert Timbers An important landmark of the Timbers Family history is the small community near Lovettsville, Virginia called Little Britain. This small, rural close-knit African-American community was centered…
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Herbert Traxler: Pillar of Lovettsville Oktoberfest
Herbert Traxler 5 February 1945-24 April 2021 “The most beautiful memorial that a person can receive, stands in the hearts of his fellow men.” Lovettsville’s Oktoberfest lost one of its…
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Taylorstown Mill: The Historical Preservation of a Loudoun County Grist Mill (1800-present)
Clare Matheny, a graduate student and a resident of the Taylorstown area, has created a video about the Taylorstown Mill and the efforts over time to preserve it, which she…
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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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Loudoun County Heritage Commission endorses request for appointment of Mount Sinai Cemetery Trustees
On April 15, the Loudoun County Heritage Commission sent a letter to the Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery, a project of the Lovettsville Historical Society, supporting the group’s…
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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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Our April 2021 Newsletter is Now Available!
Our latest newsletter issue, for April 2021, is now available. One of the history features is about the Hawker log store, and how it made its way from Sunnyside, a…
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Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery seek assistance of Loudoun County Board of Supervisors
The Family & Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery, consisting of families of those buried in the Mount Sinai Free Will Baptist Cemetery near Lovettsville, as well as neighbors and others,…
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Mount Sinai Church: A Forgotten Gem of Lovettsville History
By Edward Spannaus The 19th-century Mount Sinai Free Will Baptist Church, at “Little Britain” southwest of Lovettsville, has a history which is unique among the churches – black and…
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From Sunnyside to Lovettsville: The Hawker Log Store
By Sarah Searle When my husband and I purchased our small farmstead on Purcell Road, just outside the town limits of Lovettsville, it was through the eyes of two…
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Is this a cemetery?
Family and Friends of Mount Sinai Cemetery are planning a Spring clean-up, as a first step toward a restoration of this historic cemetery which was active from at least 1887…
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Our March 2021 Newsletter is now available!
Our latest newsletter, for March 2021, is now available. It features articles on Robert Booth, an early Dutchman’s Creek Pioneer, and on Mount Sinai Cemetery — both announcing that family…
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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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Our February 2021 Newsletter is now available
Our feature-filled newsletter for February is now available here.
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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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The Stories behind the Stained-glass Windows at Beans in the Belfry
By Edward Spannaus I was staffing the Museum about a year ago – when we were still open – when a somewhat familiar-looking gentleman walked in. He introduced himself as…
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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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The Ruse/Reed Homestead at the Lovettsville Park
By Lori Hinterleiter Kimball Anyone walking or driving recently by the intersection of East Broad Way/Milltown Road and Lovettsville Road would have noticed earth-moving equipment contouring the land in…
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The Ruse Family: A Typical Story of our German Settlers
By Edward Spannaus Christian Gottlieb Ruse (1746 – 1821) and Anna Catherine Ruse (1756? – 1802) came to our attention some years ago, because they were early owners of the…
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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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Our December 2020 Newsletter is now out!
We have just published our December 2020 newsletter. You can get it here.
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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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When Waterford’s (and Lovettsville’s) Politics Got Out of Hand
This story in the November issue of the Waterford Foundation newsletter caught our eye, especially the part at the end of the story about the 1888 brawl with a group…
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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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The Mystery of the Re-appearing Gravestones
Here’s a story you may have missed, in the absence of the Brunswick Citizen and its news coverage of “Greater Lovettsville”. We learned about this incident from the Hagerstown news…
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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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Honoring Former Mayor Elaine Walker
Memorial Address for Elaine Walker Delivered by Michael Zapf on behalf of the Lovettsville Historical Society, October 10th, 2020 at the Walker Pavilion, Lovettsville Elaine Walker’s career in the administration…
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Our October 2020 Newsletter is now available!
Our October 2020 Newsletter is now available and ready for your reading enjoyment. This issue features an article on the World War II Gold Star Service Flag at New Jerusalem…
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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…
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Black Voter Register from 1890s Found in Museum
(Updated 1/11/2021) A few years ago, volunteers working in the Lovettsville Museum found a list of registrations of Black voters in Lovettsville, dating from 1888 to 1900. The original voter…
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The Right to Vote: An Ancestral Story
By Claudette Bard Like many African Americans, my genealogical journey began when I watched Roots, the television mini-series that aired in 1977, which chronicled Alex Haley’s family history. I…
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Whose Folly, or Who’s Fawley?
During colonial times, it was common for land tracts to be given colorful names, such as “Tasker’s Chance,” “Arnold’s Delight,” “Mortality,” or “Mill’s Folly” — all of which were in…
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Our August 2020 Newsletter has launched!
Our August Newsletter is now available, featuring an introduction to the Loudoun Farm Heritage Museum and the role that Lovettsville-area farming plays in the story it tells. Get the Newsletter…
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The Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum: Preserving Loudoun’s Agricultural History – East and West
Visitors from the Lovettsville area who have toured the Loudoun Heritage Farm Museum in Sterling for the first time, are pleasantly surprised to find that the Western Loudoun County…
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“Voices of Lovettsville” — Tell us your coronavirus stories!
The Lovettsville Historical Society is sponsoring an exciting new project, called “Voices of Lovettsville,” to collect stories of our local citizens’ experiences during these extraordinary times of the coronavirus. Sheryl…
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Our July 2020 Newletter is ready
Our July newsletter launches the “Voices of Lovettsville” campaign, to collect the stories of your experiences in the time of Covid-19. And our history feature story is a bit of…
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The Spanish Flu in Lovettsville: a sort of History Mystery
The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1919 was the worst ever in world history – except perhaps for the 14th century Black Death — taking an estimated 675,000 lives in…
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Our June 2020 Newsletter is now available!
The June newsletter provides a guide to Loudoun County online history resources, and highlights our remembrance of former Mayor and LHS Board Member Elaine Walker. History features include a Civil…
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In Fond Memory: Elaine Walker
The passing of former Lovettsville Mayor Elaine Walker, on May 31, marks the end of an era. Her decades-long commitment to public service, her devotion to the Lovettsville community,…
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Secrets of Catoctin Mountain — Excerpt
James Rada was scheduled to be our speaker for the May 17 presentation in our monthly Lecture Series — which is now on hold due to the Coronavirus shutdown of…
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Spanish Flu Hit in Brunswick Hard in October 1918
The Spanish Flu hit the United States in three waves in 1918-19. The first, which was for the most part mild and non-fatal, broke out in March 1918, in…
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LOUDOUN COUNTY PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION COALITION’S LEADERSHIP SEEKS PRESERVATION OF LOVETTSVILLE COMMUNITY CENTER
The following letter was sent to the Board of Supervisors by the Executive Committee of the Loudoun County Preservation and Conservation Coalition: May 1, 2020 The Honorable Phyllis Randall Chair, Loudoun County…
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“Why Do We Commemorate Memorial Day?”
Memorial Day remarks by Edward Spannaus, Lovettsville Historical Society, May 25, 2020, delivered as part of the Town of Lovettsville’s virtual Memorial Day Ceremony. The video of the entire event…
