Lovettsville, My Hometown

Lovettsville, bordering the Potomac River of Maryland is the northernmost town in Virginia, and habitually the least heard of. Unlike its neighboring towns and cities, Lovettsville doesn’t have a Blockbuster or a McDonalds or five competing grocery stores. It’s not the kind of town you can just drive through either. Most of the residents in Lovettsville don’t even live in the town limits. It is on the back gravel roads and in the rolling fields that you can find our residents thriving; and also where you can experience nature at its best. Traveling down the country roads in Lovettsville gives you a chance to tour our farms and wineries, stay at our cozy bed and breakfasts’, and discover our off the beaten path historic treasures. You won’t be the first to fall in love with our charming town and settle in.
Lovettsville’s German settlers came from Bavaria, which is a present-day state in southern Germany. Before Bavaria was declared a state, it was part of what was referred to as the Rhineland-Palatinate. A palatinate is a region of land or territory controlled by a count Palatine, which is not a person, but a Roman style of legislature and electoral duties. By the 13th century, the Rhineland Palatinate was one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire, and so was also called the Electoral Palatinate.
During the Thirty Years War, which arose due to religious conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics, the Rhineland-Palatinate was consumed by war and plague. The early ancestors of Lovettsville’s settlers traveled from their homeland in the Rhineland-Palatinate to New Amsterdam, present day New York. Not being able to find compatible jobs in New Amsterdam, the Germans moved their farm families south to Pennsylvania, where many of them remain to this day in the Pennsylvania-Dutch communities (Wikipedia). In “Lovettsville the German Settlement”, the late Reverend Michael Kretsinger noted that while some settlers did stop at Lovettsville, others continued down through Virginia to the Shenandoah Valley, where the earth was rich and fertile with limestone.
In an article by Lovettsville’s Town Mayor Elaine Walker in “Celebration of a Heritage”, early records indicate that the first person to come to the Lovettsville area was Elder William Wenner in 1720. In 1732, other settlers from Pennsylvania came to Lovettsville to settle in what was then known as the German Settlement. Elder Wenner served as the settlement minister as well as the schoolmaster. At first, baptisms and church services were performed in the homes of the new settlers. Later a log church was built at the site that is presently the Reformed Church Cemetery. The established name of the church was St. James United Church of Christ, and it remains as the oldest church of German Reformed origin in the tri-state area, as well as the oldest active Reformed congregation in Virginia. The modern St. James church is located in town on East Broad Way Street.
According to Lovettsville the German Settlement by Yetive Rockefeller Weatherly, the Germans did not interact with the English speaking neighbors because they were cut off by their location, foreign customs and language. Fortunately, the Germans were very skilled artisans and provided themselves everything they needed for their plain, farming lives. They worked metal to make tools, made clocks and furniture, wove cloth, cobbled shoes, milled flour, and even found time to distill liquor.
Daniel Lovett was one of the original sixty-five families to settle the area in 1732. In 1820, his grandson David decided to subdivide part of the family farmland, located at the site of the present incorporated village of Lovettsville, into quarter-acre plots and sell them off. Up until the start of the Civil War, the “German Settlement” was still known as such. Sometime between 1730 and 1820, the town was called Thrasher’s Store after one of its general stores and New Town or NewTown after that. It was not until 1828 that the town name of Lovettsville was used.
For the past several years, Lovettsville has held a town wide celebration of its heritage to honor its first settlers. Of course, the celebration is open to everyone. This year, the 14th annual Oktoberfest will be held on Saturday, September 29, 2007, rain or shine. Come out to our home sweet home and enjoy an old fashioned Volksmarch which is a short jaunt through the town, watch visiting German dancers and musicians, purchase arts and crafts, and of course, treat yourself to some wiener schnitzel, beer, and wine.