{"id":2246,"date":"2014-06-14T03:11:46","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T03:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/?p=2246"},"modified":"2018-04-01T06:36:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T06:36:28","slug":"lovettsville-a-working-town-or-bedroom-community-by-edward-spannaus-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/lovettsville-a-working-town-or-bedroom-community-by-edward-spannaus-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"“Lovettsville: A Working Town, Or Bedroom Community?” by Edward Spannaus (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remarks delivered by Edward Spannaus at the Lovettsville Alumni Association Dinner, June 14, 2014, based on a memorandum prepared by Spannaus when he served on the Lovettsville Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee in 2010-11.<\/em><\/p>\n

I always have to chuckle when I hear Lovettsville described as a \u201cbedroom community\u201d \u2013 meaning, a place where no one goes to work, or shops, but where you just come home at night from somewhere else, where you can<\/em> work and shop.<\/p>\n

Often going with this as an ideal, is the fantasy that Lovettsville should be a pristine suburban town, in which no one works or gets their hands dirty.<\/p>\n

Historically, nothing could be further from the truth: For most of its existence, Lovettsville was a self-sufficient, working town, dominated by business establishments which served the surrounding community. The surrounding community of course, was made up of farms \u2013 highly productive farms, in fact, which used the advance farming methods of crop rotation, use of lime, etc. that the early German settlers (and Quakers too), brought with them from southeast Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Even before the town was laid out in 1820, there were one or more general stores here: Thrasher\u2019s Store, and Douglas & Fulton\u2019s Store, probably going back into the 1700s.<\/p>\n

After David Lovett subdivided his property on the south side of the present East Broad Way in 1820, the first building to be erected was Metzger\u2019s clothing store, the next was a hotel operated by Thomas Stevens — probably where Reamer\u2019s Hotel was later located. Soon, James and William Hoey opened another store. (They also owned the property at 30 East Broad and apparently built the first house there, but the store was probably in the middle of the next block \u2013 around 14-22 East Broad.)<\/p>\n

A \u201cboom\u201d was triggered by the completion of the B&O Railroad, and the C&O Canal, to Berlin (Brunswick) in 1832, which allowed farmers to ship their crops Georgetown and Alexandria, and for local merchants to obtain goods from Baltimore (and later other cities, including Chicago). As Brunswick became a major railroad center, this also provided employment many from the Lovettsville area. Maybe this was when we started to become a \u201cbedroom community!\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the reason for the building of the Berlin Turnpike \u2013 today’s Route 287 \u2013 in the 1850s, so that farmers from the area around Purcellville, could gain ready access to the canal and railroad at Berlin\/Brunswick. This also provided more traffic for Lovettsville merchants.<\/p>\n

(Another sort-of reverse boom was triggered one hundred years later, with the elimination of the toll gate for the Brunswick bridge \u2013 to which the merchants and businesses of Brunswick responded by inducing Lovettsville residents to come there for shopping and entertainment, to the detriment of our local Lovettsville businesses.)<\/p>\n

\"Agricultural<\/p>\n

By 1835,<\/strong> (according to a statewide survey) there were four stores, plus two boot and shoe factories, a cabinet maker, a tailor, a saddler, and milliner, and a tavern in Lovettsville — in a town that had only 14 dwellings.<\/p>\n

In 1836, Lovettsville was chartered as a town by the Virginia General Assembly.<\/p>\n

Some of the businesses that we can identify in this period, before the Civil War, are:<\/p>\n