Loudoun's Community-Owned News Source
In 1917-18, the Wilson administration strove to make American participation in the First World War—the “war to end all wars”—a people’s war, with everyoneplaying a part. Hundreds of Loudouners were drafted or otherwise served in the military. But the soldiers were not alone in their efforts to defeat Germany and Austria-Hungary.
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In February 1917, in the 30thmonth of the First World War, Germany declared total submarine warfare around the British Isles impacting all vessels including those operated by neutrals like the United States. In March, news broke of the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram in which Germany implored Mexico to join the war against us if we declared war on Germany.
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This year, Virginians remember the centennial of America’s participation in the First World War. The year 1918 was a year of massive change, heroic effort, and huge loss of life for the commonwealth. It would mark America forever. Over the past 80 years, Loudoun County’s attention to historic preservation largely through the foresight of early county zoning, the work of caring individuals, and the efforts of historical and preservation non-profits to save, restore, preserve, educate, and inspire has left us an historical landscape that lets us tell the story of that war and its home front. We should remember that story.
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Each year, thousands visit Waterford and marvel at a wonderfully intact remnant of early America. This year, the village celebrates
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One hundred high school students from 29 states and as far away as the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific came to Loudoun County in late June to attend the first National History Academy, a five-week summer residential program where they will have the opportunity to learn by experiencing American history in the places it happened.
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Before Sterling Park there was Sterling (earlier, Guilford), a thriving farm town in eastern Loudoun in the 19thcentury. The heart of Sterling was its schoolhouse, a building that survives, but is in jeopardy. Here is a brief recounting of its history.
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Much of Loudoun County’s rich history of over 15,000 years of human activity is buried and therefore unknown. Archaeology provides a means to unearth material evidence that can help write the history of important places for which there are few written records. How can archaeology help determine which places are historically important and reveal the hidden history?
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“This is a Disneyland experience!” exclaims Douglas Kemmerer, describing how visitors to Loudoun County respond when he takes them driving in his four-in-hand horse-drawn carriage over our unpaved roads.
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Ah, the peaceful, quiet Quakers of Unison. What a genteel, highbrow legacy for Well…not so much. The founding Quakers of Unison were basically a rowdy bunch of troublemakers.
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Harry was in a terrible situation: it was 1828 and Harry was an enslaved man in Loudoun County, rented by his owner to Samuel Cox. Because Harry was chattel (personal property), he had no recognized surname, as was common among slaves in Loudoun before 1860. On learning that his owner, a “Miss Allison” of Stafford County, was planning to sell him to slave traders who would take him further south, Harry decided to escape.
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