Germantown Then and Now: Pleasant Fields

In the late 1780s, three brothers moved to what is now Germantown on land left to them by their father, William Waters of Brookeville. Between them, Zachariah, William and Basil Waters owned all of the land from Rt. 118 to Old Baltimore Road and from Rt. 355 to just beyond Wisteria Drive. They built a mill on Little Seneca Creek, the ruins of which can still be seen in Black Hill Park, and each built their own house, barn and outbuildings near tributaries of the creek.

Basil Waters’ House, Pleasant Fields, is the only one standing today. His inheritance was for 831 acres of land named “Conclusion.” He built a small 2-story four room house of brick with a 1 ½ story addition, also brick, on the side in the 1790s. Today the house sits on 2 acres that also contains a large banked barn and a drive-through corn crib built in the early 20th century.

In 1797, Basil Waters married Anne Pottinger Magruder, daughter of Revolutionary War hero Col. Zadok Magruder. They had five children: William, Zadok, Susannah, Zachariah and Robert. Tragedy struck the family in 1824 when the Black Measles epidemic took the lives of 18-year-old Susannah, 9-year-old Robert, and their mother.

William went to medical school at the University of Maryland and, after practicing medicine in Montgomery County for two years, moved to Frederick. Zachariah Waters inherited the farm and 22 slaves when his father died in 1844, Zadock having died earlier. When Zachariah died in 1871 his widow, Eliza, sold the farm to his cousin, Dr. William Alexander Waters (son of Ignatius Waters of Brookeville and brother of Basil), who also happened to be Eliza’s brother.

Dr. William A. Waters had received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1852. He had been practicing medicine with his brother, Dr. Washington Waters, 22 years his senior, in the Clarksburg area before he purchased Pleasant Fields. He was known as “Dr. Bill” and had an office on the first floor of the house. He was a well-known figure as he drove his little black buggy around the area making house calls.

Dr. Waters and his wife, Mary Wilson Neale Waters, had two children, Charles Clarke and Mary Wilson, before Mary died. He then married Maria Harris Wilson, widow of Leonidas Wilson and they had one daughter, Maria.

Charles Waters brought his bride, Maud Getzendanner, to live in the house with his father and step mother in 1888. He managed the 660 acre farm and raised trotting horses. He had the fastest trotter on the east coast, Kinster, in 1898, (more about these horses in a future column).

Charles built the largest part of the house, Victorian in style with a grand entrance hall and curving staircase, in the 1890s, replacing an older, smaller addition. He added new barns, a large stable, carriage house and a racetrack. He purportedly had the house painted in his racing colors: gold, turquoise and purple.

Dr. William Waters died in 1907 from a heart attack after being lost in the woods near the house, and Charles inherited the farm. The property was sold out of the family in 1932, a victim of the Great Depression, and subsequently passed through the hands of several owners and renters.

Pleasant Fields is on Milestone Manor Lane off of Observation Drive in Germantown and is on the Master Plan for Historic Preservation. It is currently owned by Montgomery Parks and houses the offices of Heritage Montgomery, the King Farm Dairy Mooseum, and the Lincoln Park Historical Trust. The cemetery associated with the house is on Hawks Nest Lane.