40135 Main Street
This two-story brick house was built sometime between 1816 and 1827. Notice the Dog-tooth cornice and the jack arches over the openings, features this house shares with Wisteria Cottage next door.
At the time of the Civil War, the owner of the house, Robert Hollingsworth, a Quaker schoolteacher from Winchester, was an outspoken defender of the Union, which he supported “now and forever.”
In September 1863 Confederate General Jeb Stuart ordered the seizure of two prominent Waterford Quakers as hostages to secure the release of two secessionists from Federal prison. The men to be captured were insurance company president William Williams and Asa Bond, the owner of the tanyard across the street. Williams, who lived on Second Street, was taken as he and his wife Mary were entertaining guests in their parlor.
By the time the Rebels reached this end of town, Bond had been warned. As Bond slipped out the back, his daughter Mrs. Rachel Means and a niece Miss Laura Bond challenged the soldiers at the door and, from all reports, put up a good fight. Miss Bond fired a revolver at the Rebels. This diversion allowed Bond to escape, but Robert Hollingsworth, the owner of this house, was seized instead.
The two hostages were sent to Richmond’s Castle Thunder Prison. Efforts to secure their release continued into December, when Mrs. Mary Williams set off for Washington with a letter to President Lincoln and a petition signed by 85 Union supporters from Loudoun County. President Lincoln heard their pleas at the White House and jotted a note to the commissioner for prisoner exchange.
Even after Mary Williams’ trip, the process of securing the prisoners’ release did not go smoothly, but finally the prisoners were released and arrived in Waterford on Christmas Eve 1863.
The Griffith-Gover House is open through the courtesy of Jonathan Daniel and Lee Spangler.