Germantown's 1790s Basil Waters farmhouse
12535 Milestone Manor Lane, Germantown, MD 20876
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Open as a Heritage Montgomery facility and rental venue. Check montgomeryhistory.org for current hours and tour options.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic farmhouse and grounds
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1795 · Oldest house in Germantown, Maryland · Pleasant Fields farm · Basil Waters family · Heritage Montgomery headquarters
The Waters House is the oldest house in Germantown, Maryland, with the original small brick section dating to the mid-1790s. Basil Waters (1761-1844) built the house and named the surrounding farm Pleasant Fields. He had inherited 200 acres of land in what is now Germantown from his father William Waters of Brookeville, Maryland. Basil's brothers Zachariah and William also received land and established farms and homes nearby. The fourth brother, Ignatius, inherited the family home, Belmont, in Brookeville.
The Waters House was built in three parts, with later additions reflecting the farm's mid-1800s expansion. The Germantown campus of the Montgomery County Historical Society includes the 1790s farmhouse, the barn, and several original outbuildings. The Waters House History Center now contains exhibit galleries, a research library, and a museum shop, and also serves as the offices of Heritage Montgomery and the Germantown program offices of Montgomery Parks.
Sources
Before the building's restoration and reopening as a history center, local Germantown tradition reported lights visible in the attic and interior doors opening and closing without an obvious cause. The Shadowlands account associates the activity with a 1800s family incident allegedly involving a jealous relative; no public archival corroboration of that specific event has been located in Montgomery County history sources.
The Waters House is now actively interpreted as a working museum and Heritage Montgomery facility rather than a paranormal site. Visitors should treat any reported phenomena as historic oral tradition and prioritize the documented farm-life and Waters-family programming offered by the Center.
Tour the Waters House, the oldest house in Germantown, with a 1790s dwelling, barn, and outbuildings interpreting mid-1800s farm life. The house contains exhibit galleries, a research library, and a museum shop, and serves as the office for Heritage Montgomery.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Washington, DC
The Octagon House at 1799 New York Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., was completed in 1801 for Virginia planter John Tayloe III to a design by William Thornton, the first architect of the United States Capitol. The house served as the temporary Executive Mansion for President James Madison following the August 1814 British burning of the White House. Madison signed the Treaty of Ghent there in February 1815.
Coffeyville, KS
The Brown Mansion is a 16-room, three-story mansion completed in 1904 by William Pitzer (W.P.) Brown, a businessman who accumulated wealth through lumber and natural gas interests in Coffeyville. The structure was designed by the Kansas City architectural firm of Wilder and Wight at a cost of $125,000. The mansion was the family residence until 1970, when Violet Brown, the sole surviving child, sold it to the Coffeyville Historical Society for use as a museum.
Cockeysville, MD
The Baltimore County Almshouse was built in the early 1870s as the county's third and last poorhouse, opening to residents in 1874. It housed the elderly, indigent, mentally ill, and dependent children for eighty-four years before closing in 1958. Since the 1960s the building has served as headquarters for the Historical Society of Baltimore County.