In the mid-1800s, before video games-before even hot rods and drag races, young Loudoun swains gathered on warm summer days to vie on horseback. On one such occasion at Leesburg in 1859, local "knights" paraded to the accompaniment of a brass band before proceeding to "the grounds of chivalric combat where they were greeted with blue eyes and approving smiles from ladies fair." (The latter were evidently well represented at Waterford, too, judging from the array of billowing dresses and artfully held parasols gracing the slope and filling the wagon in the foreground of this photo.) The combatants entered the lists under noms de guerre: the "Knight of Drover's Rest," the "Unfortunate Knight," the "Knight of Rosemont," and the mysterious "Knight of the Limber Twig." Limber or not, the "Twig" prevailed and was declared victor, while a "Queen of Love and Beauty" was also crowned.

After the Civil War, enthusiasm for such contests evidently faded. Waterford's Frank Myers, a battle-scarred--and defeated--Confederate cavalryman, confided in his diary in August 1865, "I suppose people had as well be merry as sad but I can't for my life see what pleasure there is in tournaments. I've seen horses run enough in my time."

The photographer was probably Newton Berry. In the 1860s he had a "small establishment in Waterford for taking ambrotypes." Perhaps an eagle-eyed reader can deduce the venue of the Waterford Tournament from the lay of the land, the stone barn, and other clues.

 --John Souders

Ladies, Liquor & Laughter: 

Mischief of an Architectural Historian, 1930s-70s

Loudoun County, Virginia

John G. Lewis

(2007, 168 pages, black & white photos, $20 hardcover)

Ann Larson recently delivered to the Foundation office copies of John Lewis's delightful autobiography, Ladies, Liquor & Laughter. I immediately put it on my summer reading list and have already been happily reading aloud passages to my long-suffering office mates.

Here's a quote from one of Mr. Lewis's neighbors in Waterford: "I never wear a hat," she said, "but I always keep one by the front door, so when someone knocks I put it on and, If I want to see them, I tell them I just got home, or if not, I tell them I'm on my way out." In a similar vein, John recounts his long history in Loudoun County (including much about Waterford) with wit and wisdom.

John G. Lewis did much to set the course of historic preservation in Loudoun County during his 33 years here.  He served as the regional representative of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission (now the Virginia Department of Historic Resources) serving Loudoun, Fairfax, Fauquier , Prince William, Clarke, and Frederick counties from 1970 to 1980. This job enabled him to document and photograph more than 700 historic dwellings and shepherd many onto the Virginia Landmarks Register of Historic Places.

In 1975, when he was chairman of the county's scenic river committee, the Virginia General Assembly enacted legislation to include Goose Creek and Catoctin Creek among the first six streams admitted to the state scenic river system. He was also one of the key activists in warding off proposals by the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the Fairfax County Water Authority to place a dam and reservoir on Catoctin Creek near Taylorstown.  Mr. Lewis restored the Parker-Bennett and Graham houses in Waterford, among his five restoration projects of historic houses in Loudoun County.

Ladies, Liquor & Laughter is available from the Foundation office on Main Street in Waterford.