One of the most important of the many duties carried out by the Town Clerk’s office is keeping the minutes of the Town Council meetings. Those minutes, going back to the first Town Council meeting on January 14, 1879, are archived on the Town website (www.herndon-va.gov), and anyone can access them. While most folks I know look to the minutes to document or verify something that took place at a recent meeting, skimming through the old records is a great way to get some insight into Herndon life in days past, and to find out how much things have (or haven’t, in some cases) changed. Following …

Lottie Dyer Schneider was born in Herndon in 1879, the year the Town was incorporated. In 1962, while living in Marion, Virginia, she wrote Memories of Herndon, Virginia, her recollection of life in her hometown. In 1979, the Herndon Historical Society reprinted the book and it remains available for purchase in the Depot today.  “My purpose in writing a chronicle of those early days,” she said, “is to preserve, if possible, for those who come after me the atmosphere of the village which characterized Herndon at that period—an atmosphere that is rapidly ceasing to exist and by many scarcely …

William Lewis Herndon, a Commander in the U.S. Navy, explored the entire length of the Amazon beginning in 1850. His goal was to spur steam travel on the river.  In 1855, he became the Captain of the S.S. Central America. Captain Herndon went down with his ship in 1857 in a hurricane off of North Carolina. The sinking of the Central America was one of America’s greatest maritime disasters. The train depot on the Alexandria Loudon & Hampshire Railroad was built in 1857, before the area became known as Herndon. The train allowed area residents to commute to Washington and Alexandria.  In 1858, …

• The Carroll House, located in Runnymede Park, has an interesting history that includes, possibly, a murder mystery. To learn more about the park, join the Friends of Runnymede Park for their annual meeting next Sunday, March 11, from 7-9 p.m. at ArtSpace Herndon. The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will begin with a wine and cheese reception and a slide show of photos taken in the park by Herndon High photography students. Runnymede Park, the Town’s 58-acre natural park, contains heavily wooded areas and a large meadow. It boasts over 450 native plant species, diverse …

In a previous column (Asa Bradshaw and the Mystery of the Missing Money, published on November 27) we talked about Asa Bradshaw, who for a number of years used his position at the National Bank of Herndon to steal from bank depositors. Unfortunately, not everyone received compensation for his losses as a result of Bradshaw’s embezzlement. One of those depositors, Thomas S. Underwood, not only lost his savings at the bank, but he lost his farm as well. In 1920, Thomas and Mary Underwood acquired a 145-acre farm on Route 625 (Church Road) in Sterling. They lived there with their five children. …

The buildings in Herndon’s downtown area have undergone many changes in use over the years. There have been lots of stores—grocery stores, drugstores, general stores, feed stores, and more—and a few surprises, too! Jimmy’s Old Town Tavern: The building that houses Jimmy’s and Roaches in the Attics Antiques began its life as the W.T. Wilkins drugstore. In the 1940s it was a pub. It then became Feldman’s general merchandise store, which sold furniture, clothing, and toys. It also for a time housed Western Auto and then an army surplus store. Roberts Carpets operated at this location until it …

In the 1840s, because of its port and the turnpikes that linked the city to Virginia’s farmlands, Alexandria was an important center of commerce. Its dominance was threatened, however, by competition from the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad, which pushed west from the port at Baltimore to the fertile valleys of the Ohio River Valley.  On March 15, 1853, a new railroad—the Alexandria, Loudoun & Hampshire (AL&H) Railroad—was chartered to compete with the B&O. It would run west from Alexandria past Leesburg, through Clarke’s Gap in Loudoun County, and continue into Hampshire County, Virginia (…

One of the things I truly enjoy when doing research on Herndon’s history is reading old newspapers. I often find such interesting information about the way people used to live 50, 75, even 100 years ago. So, I thought I’d pick a date and read a whole newspaper just to see what life in Herndon was like at that time. There are quite a number of newspaper archives available in the library. The Alexandria Gazette was published from 1784 to 1945. The Hendon Observer News was published from 1925 to 1943. That left me with the Fairfax Herald, which was published from 1886 to 1973. I chose the …

The holiday season is a time to celebrate, and for many of us that means the addition of an unwanted pound or two. What a great excuse to go for a walk! Next time you feel the need to get out and stretch your legs, walk with a purpose. Take a walking tour of some of the properties listed on Herndon’s Historic Registry. You can start at the Herndon Depot on Lynn Street. (If you decide to walk between noon and 3:00 p.m. any Sunday afternoon except Christmas, stop in and tour the museum, too!) Next, cut through the Municipal Parking Lot and turn left on Center Street. (If the ArtSpace gallery is…

In 1933, the National Bank of Herndon was the second largest bank in Fairfax County. Open since 1910, business was brisk. The bank served customers from a 25-square-mile area. In early January 1935, however, the bank closed abruptly and events unfolded in short order.  On January 10, Asa E. Bradshaw, the bank’s mild-mannered 44-year-old cashier signed a full confession, admitting to embezzling “about $60,000” over the course of 18 years—a huge amount in those days. Married with two children, Bradshaw had been considered a “model cashier and a leading citizen in the community.” He had been …

Many of you already are familiar with Laura Ratcliffe, a southern sympathizer who once lived just outside Herndon on Centreville Road and helped John Mosby during the Civil War. [For more about Laura, see the December 26, 2010 column, Laura Ratcliffe, Herndon's Confederate Spy.] But you may not be familiar with her relationship with Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart. James Ewell Brown (J.E.B.) Stuart was born in 1833 and grew up in the small town of Laurel Hill, in southern Virginia near the North Carolina border. After being home schooled, he went to Emory and Henry College in Wytheville, …

In 1976, Herndon joined in as the nation celebrated its bicentennial. One of the many activities that took place was a Town-sponsored contest to design a new town seal. On June 8, 1976, the Town Council, led by Mayor Gary Lopp, passed a resolution thanking those who had participated in the contest and announcing the creator of the winning design, Tony DeBenedittis, an art teacher at Herndon High School. He received a $100 U.S. savings bond, and his sketch was sent off to a designer, who—as he put it—was asked to “neaten it up.” Although now retired, DeBenedittis remains and active and …

When Bob Matthews and Colleen Delawder purchased the house at 610 Spring Street in 2005, they knew it was old and they loved its charm, but they had no idea of its history. Built as a one-story, one-room structure in 1898, additions included a second story in 1910 and further enlargements in 1925, 1930, and 1948. The house passed through a series of owners and, by the time Bob and Nancy Burk purchased it in 1976, it had fallen into serious disrepair.  The living room was the only room with electricity; extension cords served the rest of the house. Plumbing was almost nonexistent and the only …

The population of Herndon had reached 953 by 1920, and African Americans represented about 10 percent of that number. Almost all of them lived within two “colored settlements”—either Cooktown (at the northern limits of town) or Oak Grove (near Sterling), where a two-room elementary school with one teacher that served children from the two settlements was located. Youngsters from Cooktown and Oak Grove families travelled to Manassas to attend high school. The social life also revolved around the two settlements. There was a church in Oak Grove, and there were Saturday night lawn parties where …

In the mid-1800s, Herndon was a small dairy farming community. It began to grow as the railroad arrived in the 1850s. The Depot was built in 1857, and stores, buildings, and homes grew up around it as people moved into the area. In 1897, Cora Laws, foster daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harlon Waite of Catlett, Virginia, married Magnus T. Wilkins and moved to Herndon, where Mr. Wilkins opened a general store at the corner of Elden and Spring Streets. The Wilkins and Brothers Herndon Bargain Store is believed to have been built in 1897. The store sold food and other household items. By 1911, the town…

The first church to be built in Herndon was the Northern Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) Church. It was built in 1872 on a tract of land formerly owned by Ancel St. John, a member of Herndon’s first Town Council, and is still located at 800 Elden Street, at the corner of Elden and Center Streets. St. John was one of the townspeople who were instrumental in founding the church. In the mid-1800s, a number of New England families moved into the Herndon area, drawn by the milder climate and ease of access to Washington and Alexandria. As these various settlers began to move into the area, they began …

I was driving by Sully Plantation recently when I noticed they were having a World War II re-enactment. And that got me thinking about an interview I did with Ellen Kephart in 2000, while working on my book, "Herndon: A Town and Its History." Ellen was born in Herndon in 1916, and married Herman Kephart in 1936. Herman worked at the Green Funeral Home and was a long time volunteer fire fighter. I asked Ellen what Herndon was like during the war, and she related the following. We were very patriotic. I worked in the tracking station for airplanes. We had certain day every other week and two …

Last month we wrote about one of the earliest Herndon schools, which was located at 725 Center Street (“Herndon’s Early Public Schools”). A new school that housed all 12 grades was built on Locust Street in 1910-11. It was destroyed by fire during the 1927-28 school year and was quickly rebuilt. A new building was constructed next to the older one in 1952. Although it was known as Herndon High School, all grades were housed in the Locust Street facility for a number of years. The elementary students attended until Herndon Elementary was built in 1961, and the high school students attended …

In 1900, most of Fairfax County’s 18,850 residents lived on farms, and the County was the state leader when it came to dairy products. Dairy farming continued to be the area’s primary industry during the 1920s and 1930s, and it survived well into the 1950s. Until the dramatic influx of urban workers into the area in the second half of the century, the dairy farmer’s life set the style and pace of life in the county. One important factor in the success of dairy farming in the area around Herndon was the land itself. Its gently undulating terrain, which formed natural water depressions, coupled…

Our last column (“Herndon’s Historic Homes Registry”) made mention of the home at 725 Center Street. This home is not only significant for its age, but also because it originally housed of one of Herndon’s earliest public schools. In the mid 1860s, Robert and Matilda Matthews sold 401 acres of land to J. H. Thompson and Ancel St. John (see our November 14, 2010 column,  “Who Is Ancel St. John?”). This land included the parcel where the house at 725 Center Street now sits. St. John and Thompson divided the land, and St. John subsequently gave half an acre to the Herndon School Association to …