|
|
Main Street 2
Virtual Walking Tour
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. Also know as the Francis Pierpoint House. |
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. |
|
|
|
|
|
Previous
