{"id":4716,"date":"2021-12-01T19:31:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T19:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/?p=4716"},"modified":"2022-02-28T16:27:50","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:27:50","slug":"the-luther-potterfield-stable-and-the-block-that-was-too-big-for-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/the-luther-potterfield-stable-and-the-block-that-was-too-big-for-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"The Luther Potterfield Stable, and The Block That Was Too Big for Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 stable which was probably built or rebuilt by Luther H. Potterfield in the late 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century \u2013 although there was already a stable on that site before Potterfield bought the property in 1878. Sometime in the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century various sheds were tacked onto it \u2013 including chicken coops and an outhouse, which have been removed over recent years by the owner. The recent removal of the shed on the front of the stable restores it to its original footprint.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The stable with shed in front,, around 2015.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The structure is referred to as a \u201clandmark\u201d by some old-timers, and it was literally used as a land mark in the court case that was brought by the Freedom (Masonic) Lodge against store-owner Beatrice McClain in 1974. At issue in that case was a five-foot strip of land between the McClain Store (now the Catoctin Bible Church), and the Masonic Lodge (still there).<\/p>\n

As is the case with many old deeds, the property descriptions (\u201cmetes and bounds\u201d) are hard to pin down today, since they often refer to a tree or a stone which is long gone. In the case of the Trustees of the Freedom Lodge versus Beatrice McClain,<\/em> surveys were commissioned by both property owners \u2013 and both found that the boundary lines for the entire block were too small for the four property tracts contained within it.<\/p>\n

What we are calling the Potterfield stable was the only point of reference in the old deeds for the entire block which could still be found in the 1970s. We are referring to the block bounded by South Loudoun Street, East Broad Way, Locust Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue. This is one of the two oldest blocks in the town of Lovettsville; the other is the one on the west side of South Loudoun Street (formerly known as \u201cPike Street\u201d) running along the south side of Broad Way to Light Street.<\/p>\n

When David Lovett divided up the eastern end of his farm into \u201ccity lots\u201d in 1820, the first lots sold were four lots on the south side of Broad Way (then called the \u201cTankerville Line\u201d), with two each on either side of the turnpike. A hotel was opened on the west side of Loudoun Street, and a store on the east side. The German Settlement<\/em> book says that James and William Hoey opened a store on one of Stevens\u2019 lots in 1823; deed records show the Hoeys buying Lots 11 &12 in 1828.[i]<\/a>\u00a0 Those two lots are where the McClain store and the Masonic Lodge were later located.<\/p>\n

\""Main<\/a>
“Main St., Lovettsville” postcard, 1917, showing from right to left, the store, the Masonic Hall, the Rollins house, and on the far left, the Luther Potterfield house.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How to measure an old block<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1974, both of the surveyors began their measurements at the southeast corner of the \u201dstable,\u201d as is referenced in many of the old deeds. \u00a0At the opposite corner (the northwest corner) of the block, was the old Town well and pump. But that was gone and covered over with a concrete pad by the 1970s.\u00a0 So, the corner of the stable was all they had.<\/p>\n

The Lodge surveyor, Larry Brown, testified in a deposition that he started his survey at the stable at Locust and Pennsylvania, because it was the only point he could find on the ground that was cited in the old deeds. But he said that he wasn\u2019t sure it was the same stable as cited in the deeds. At that point, Dorothy Rollins, the owner of the two properties on the east end of the block, interjected that the stable was hers, and that it was very old. \u201cIt belongs to me,\u201d she said, \u201cand it\u2019s been there forever.\u201d She went on to add that it used to be used as a livery stable.<\/p>\n

At another point in the case, storeowner Bea McClain was asked about the stable, and she said: \u201cIt\u2019s very old. According to the boards and according to the construction, it\u2019s very old.\u201c<\/p>\n

\"Portion<\/a>
Portion of a plat of the Town of Lovettsville, filed with the court around 1879. Outlined in\u00a0blue is the block containing Lots 11-15, which were all sold by David Lovett in 1820-1821. The owners at this time were Peter Fry (11), Masonic Hall (12), Wm. Hilleary (old 13), Frederick Eamich (14), and Luther H. Potterfield (15). The Potterfield Stable is shown in red.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just how old is the stable?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201cstable\u201d first appears in property descriptions in an 1867 deed, when Lot 15 \u00a0was being sold by J.C. Stoneburner to Benjamin Kinsey. The 1867 deed refers to \u201cthe corner of the stable\u201d as marking the southeast corner of the property. In 1878, Luther Potterfield bought the property from Kinsey, with the same property description, and it remained in his hands until 1924.<\/p>\n

Surveyor Brown could have been right that the stable he saw in 1974 was not the same as the stable referred to in the old deeds, which indicate that it was already there by 1867. When Tom Bullock, (the former head of the Lovettsville Historical Society, and a contractor who restores old buildings) looked at the stable 10-15 years ago, he dated it to the late 19th<\/sup> century, perhaps around 1890.<\/p>\n

Another indication is the type of rafters in the stable. A history of the house at 32 East Broad Way, notes that the rafters in the rear part of the house \u2013 thought to have been built around 1890-1900 \u2013 are rough-cut and have circular saw marks, similar to the rafters in the stable.<\/p>\n

So it is very likely that the stable was rebuilt while Luther Potterfield owned the property. This is also indicated by the fact that many of the beams had obviously been previously used, or \u201cre-purposed\u201d as they say these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrow it into the street\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Surveyor Brown testified that, starting from the stable, and measuring each property along Pennsylvania Avenue, he found that the combined properties were about five feet longer than they were supposed to be, putting the McClain house porch at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and South Loudoun Street, out into the street. (The other surveyor, Col. O.B. Knight, also testified that errors in distances were common, and that any error you find, \u201cyou throw into the street.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Mrs. McClain disagreed with Brown\u2019s survey, so she hired her own surveyor, Col. Knight. Knight also started his survey at the Potterfield stable, but he said that he<\/p>\n

\"Set<\/a>
Set stone at corner of stable.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

had found a stone which he moved and reset at the corner of the stable \u2013 which is still there today (photo at right). He did the same thing at the corner of Locust and\u00a0Broad Way, where he moved a stone a couple of feet to the west. But when he got to the other end of the block, on South Loudoun Street, he seems to have squeezed everything to the east.\u00a0 He put the Town Well and Pump outside the McClain property, and then moved the boundary line between the McClain property and the Lodge 4-6 feet to the east, and then placed the line between the Rollins property and the old Potterfield property the same distance to the east (which would have pushed the old Potterfield property out into Locust Street.)\u00a0 And Judge Snead agreed with him.\u00a0 But that\u2019s a story for another day.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, let\u2019s take another look at the stable.<\/p>\n

Board and Batten construction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The exterior walls of the Potterfield stable were built in \u201cboard and batten\u201d style \u2013 long, wide boards placed vertically, and then narrow pieces of wood nailed over the seams between boards. This was a popular style for barns, and even houses, in the 19th<\/sup> century; it came into common use once that sawmills were accessible and were able to cut boards to uniform sizes. In this case, the boards were 12 feet long (high), and one foot wide.<\/p>\n

The best-known board-and-batten building in Lovettsville was probably the old Hammond blacksmith shop, in the corner of Church and Broad Way, north of what is now Andy\u2019s restaurant and east of the old post office (now Brainiacs). In describing this building a quarter-century ago, \u00a0Lovettsville historian Dorothy Rickard called it \u201cone of the finest examples of \u2018board and batten\u2019 construction remaining in Virginia.\u201d[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of the battens on the north side of the Potterfield stable, which were hidden by the shed built onto the front of the stable, had been removed by the owner in recent years, in order to use them to replace others that were exposed and weather-damaged. But fortunately, the owner was able to salvage other battens when the Nicewarner blacksmith shop<\/a> on Locust Street was torn down a few years ago,[iii]<\/a> and he used those battens to replace the missing ones on the front of the stable.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Nicewarner blacksmth shop is shown in this 1942 photo looking north on Locust St. toward Broad Way.\u00a0 The Potterfield Stable is behind the trees on the upper right side.\u00a0 (Photo courtesy of Tim Keena.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The stable now looks similar to what it would have looked like in the 19th<\/sup> century, with the exception of the door opening on the front which was probably cut by Selby Brown in the 1940s or thereabouts. The door is quite low, but the Brown brothers were relatively short in stature, so they didn\u2019t need a six-foot door.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The stable restored, Nov. 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And so, with the rickety old sheds removed, this stable, which \u201chas been there forever,\u201d may, we hope, continue to be there forever.\u00a0 And so will the errors in measurement made 200 years ago.<\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Lovettsville: The German Settlement<\/em> (1976), pp. 19-20.<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> \u201cA walk back in time \u2013 Part I,\u201d Brunswick Citizen<\/em>, April 13, 1995.<\/p>\n

[iii]<\/a> What Was That Building on Lovettsville\u2019s Locust Street?\u201d\u00a0Lovettsville Historical Society website (see link above).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,35,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-article","category-lovettsville-history","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4716"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4980,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions\/4980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}