Silver Lake Historic District

D-62

English American settler Daniel Harrison owned hundreds of acres in this area in the mid-18th century, and Presbyterians built Cooks Creek Church near here ca. 1750. German Baptist Brethren began moving to the Shenandoah Valley from Maryland and Pennsylvania at midcentury, arriving here by 1790. Brethren church member John J. Rife built a dam here ca. 1822, forming Silver Lake, and constructed a flour mill and a sawmill. This complex became the center of a prosperous industrial and agricultural community. A popular recreational site, Silver Lake began supplying water to Dayton and Harrisonburg in the 20th century. The 104-acre district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Department of Historic Resources, 2021

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Silver Lake Historic District, NRHP nomination (2019). Rife’s Mill, Virginia Landmarks Register nomination (1999). Jury Report to Rockingham County Court, Land Causes & Mills, LVA Land Causes & Mills microfilm, Reel 144. Judge Charles T. O’Ferrall (later Virginia Governor), handwritten notes (1880), Jody Meyerhoeffer Collection, Dayton, VA. Roger E. Sappington, The Brethren in Virginia (Harrisonburg: The Committee for Brethren History in Virginia, 1973). J. Houston Harrison, Settlers by the Long Grey Trail (Dayton, VA: C. J. Carrier Co., 1935). Deed, Daniel & Sallie Bowman to Charles P. Arey (1884). Silver Lake Improvement Co., Corporate Charter (1909), LVA Charter Book 3, 1915-1931 Reel #62.