ABOUT

Waterford is an unincorporated village in the Catoctin Valley of Loudoun County, Virginia, located alongCatoctin Creek. 

History
Waterford was established around 1733 by Amos Janney, a Quaker from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Janney purchased 400 acres (1.6 km²) on the south fork of Catoctin Creek and established a grist mill andsaw mill in the area in the 1740s. Due to the success of the mills, the settlement became known as "Janney's Mill". The town grew quickly as a center of commerce for growers of grain. Amos Janney died in 1747, leaving his estate to his sixteen-year-old son, Mahlon. Mahlon replaced the original log mill with a two-story structure. The village continued to grow, and in 1780, 12 acres (49,000 m²) on the south side of Main Street were subdivided into 15 lots, upon which shops and homes were built. By the 1790s, the village was known as Waterford, named after the city of Waterford, in Ireland, where some of its founders had once lived before immigrating to the United States. New residents continued to come from Pennsylvania, as Quakers were followed by Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, and Methodists. Waterford was also populated by African-Americans, both free and enslaved. By the start of the Civil War, the population of Waterford remained largely Quaker. As pacifists andabolitionists, the Quakers remained loyal to the Union throughout the war. Waterford was the scene of a fierce fight between the county's Unionist and Confederate partisan units, the Loudoun Rangers and White's Rebels, respectively.