|
|
 |
The Kitty Leggett House
Joseph Janney sold a dwelling on this site to fellow Quaker Stephen Wilson in 1791. Catherine (Kitty) Leggett purchased the residence in 1860 and it remained in her family until 1925. A spark from a steam-powered thresher traveling down Main Street around 1900 ignited the wood shake roof and the house was extensively damaged. Kitty's Irish-born son-in-law, Robert Graham rebuilt and expanded the structure. Photos of the house before the fire show it as one full story lower, with the roof encompassing a more crudely built front porch.
|
|
 |
40184 Main Street
A small dwelling stood on this property by 1833. By the 1850s the structure was being used as a machine shop. The present building may be a later replacement of that earlier two-story log dwelling. This was one of the first homes in Waterford restored by Edward Chamberlin, who purchased it in 1938.
|
|
The Isaac Steer Hough House Isaac Steer Hough, Jr. (1840-1915), erected this Victorian-style building in 1886, allegedly incorporating a smaller earlier dwelling. Hough ran a store on the ground floor, and that space has housed various shops since. To this day there is no interior access to the upper floors.
|
 |
|
 |
The Ratcliffe House Samuel Pierpoint and his family lived here while operating a dry goods store in an adjacent building (remnants are visible to the right) from 1809 until Pierpoint's death in 1812. His wife remarried and her new husband continued the store. In 1844 Ann Taylor Ratcliffe, a widow, purchased the property at auction; it remained in her family until 1909. During the 1840s many local children attended a school here run by Ann's daughters, Mary and Sarah. The appearance of two front doors may seem unusual, but it was common in the Pennsylvania German community, where many Waterford families had their roots.
|
|
Tanyard Site
The Tannery Branch is the site of one of Waterford's early tanyards. A still earlier one was located a bit upstream, closer to Bond Street. By 1830 Quakers Thomas Phillips and Asa Bond were operating both tanneries. Within a few years of Bond's death in 1878 the tannery closed; business had already declined rapidly after the extension of the railroad to Paeonian Springs in 1870, which brought in cheaper leather goods from large manufacturers. At one time there was a house on the site for tannery workers and a building for storing leather. Still visible in the meadow are the pits in which hides were soaked.
|
|
| |
|