Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old Town

In the Indian wars of 1755-57, Fredericksburg became an important depot and rendezvous for troops. Recruits, provisions, supplies and ordnances were sent to the town in quantities, and on April 15th, 1757, Governor Dinwiddie ordered Colonel George Washington to send two hundred men there to be “Thence sent by vessels to South Carolina, to treat with curtesy the Indians at Fort London, and to send them out in scalping parties with such number of men as you can spare.”

But now the peaceable growth and prosperity of the village were to be halted. Dissatisfaction with the government in England began to grow, and there were murmurings of discontent and resentment, not by any means indulged in by all the citizens, for large numbers were still utterly loyal to the Crown, and those who opposed its policies congregated to themselves, meeting in secret or standing in little groups about the streets to give vent to their feelings.

The Revolution Gathers

One well-known place for the meeting of “Revolutionists” was the Rising Sun tavern still standing in good order, at that time kept by “Mine Host,” George Weedon. This famed old Tavern is told of in another chapter. It is almost certain that at this tavern the rough draft was made of a resolution to be later passed in a public town meeting, which was tantamount to a declaration of independence, and which was passed twenty-one days before the famous Mecklenburg declaration and more than a year before that of the American congress.

These resolutions were adopted on the 29th day of April, 1775, amidst the greatest public excitement. News of the battle of Lexington, fought on the 20th of April, and of the removal by Lord Dunmore of twenty barrels of powder from the public magazine at Williamsburg to the English frigate “Fowey,” then lying near Yorktown, which occurred one day after the battle of Lexington, had just reached Fredericksburg. Immediately the citizens showed their indignation. More than six hundred men from the town and the surrounding country armed themselves and sent a courier to General Washington, then at Williamsburg, offering their services in defense of the Colonies. Delegates were also dispatched to Richmond to ascertain the true state of affairs, and to find out at what point the men should report. The men stayed under arms and in readiness to move at short notice until General Washington transmitted a message, advising that they restrain from any hostilities until a congress could be called to decide upon a general plan of defense. This advice was received by a council of more than a hundred men, representing fourteen companies (the number under arms having by this time grown), which decided by a majority of one to disperse for the present, but to keep themselves in readiness for a call. Many of them afterwards joined the armies of General Washington.

The Gunnery Is Built

Material preparations for the conflict that everyone, even the Tories, now felt was certain, were made by the establishment at the town of the first small arms manufactury in America, which was located on what now is known as Gunnery Green. Colonel Fielding Lewis, brother-in-law of General Washington, was one of the commissioners in charge of the gunnery and active in its management.

With the coming of the Gunnery, and the formation of companies of troops, the peaceful atmosphere of Fredericksburg quickly changed to one of a militaristic aspect. Recruits drilled in the street, the manufacture of arms was rushed, supplies were received and stored, couriers, with news from other parts of the country, dashed in to acquaint the eager townspeople with events, and those loyal to the Colonies went bravely about with every kind of war preparation, while those inclined to Toryism kept quiet and to themselves, or moved away with their families, hoping, and probably succeeding in many cases, in reaching England before the whole country was affected by the war, in which the part played by Fredericksburg and its citizens was of the utmost importance. The town gave to the Revolution an unusually large proportion of troops and many of the great leaders.

During the Revolution, although Fredericksburg men were the leaders of the Army, no fighting occurred here and the period was not one of danger for the town, but was one of anxiety for the inhabitants. Tarleton passed close to this city on his raid towards Charlottesville, and Lafayette and his men built the road still known as “The Marquis Road,” through the Wilderness toward Orange.

Recently three soldiers, whose uniform buttons testify they were Hessians, were dug up near Spotsylvania Court House. A prison camp existed about two miles from here on the Plank Road from which Washington recruited some artisans to do the interior decorating in the home of his beloved sister, Betty, at Kenmore.

Regiments Are Recruited

Several Regiments went from Fredericksburg. General William Woodford (see sketch of life) was elected Commander of the first. Among his descendants are the late Marion Willis, Mayor Willis and Mr. Benj. Willis. General Hugh Mercer was chosen Commander of the third regiment, and James Monroe, of Fredericksburg (afterwards president) was Lieut. – Colonel, while Thomas Marshall, father of Chief Justice Marshall, was Major. The other Virginia Regiment was not recruited here. It was commanded by Patrick Henry.

Although it furnished two of the first three Virginia Regiments, and half of America’s Generals, as well as the Commanding General, Fredericksburg was not a war center. Its history during that period will be found in the lives of the men it produced, elsewhere in this book.

It did give most material aid by furnishing arms from the “Gunnery” of Col. Fielding Lewis, and was generous in its financial aid, and always ready for attack.

After the Revolution

In the days of its glory, the Old Town was famed and prosperous

The first mention of Fredericksburg in the annals of the new Republic is an act of the legislature in 1781, incorporating the town and vesting the powers of its government in the hands of a mayor and commonality, consisting of a council and board of aldermen. Courts were established and provision made for future elections of its officials.

The first mayor was Charles Mortimer, and the Board of Aldermen consisted of William Williams, John Sommerville, Charles Dick, Samuel Roddy and John Julien, who, together with the mayor, were also justices of the peace, and required to hold a hustings court monthly. John Legg was appointed sergeant of the court and corporation, and John Richards and James Jarvis constables. The town’s initial commonwealth’s attorney, John Minor, is said to have been the first man to offer in any legislative body of the country a bill for the emancipation of the slaves.

The first action of the court is interesting, especially in these times. It was giving license to five persons to conduct taverns, immediately followed by an act to regulate them by establishing prices for alcoholic, vinous and fermented beverages. There is no mention of opening or closing hours, Sunday selling, selling to minors or any of the later and stricter regulations, and the prices to be charged are in terms of pounds, or parts, per gallon. The American bar was unknown then and probably even in the taverns and tap rooms, little liquor was sold by the drink. Some of the prices established translated into dollars, were West Indian rum, per gallon, $3.34; brandy, $1.67; good whiskey, $1.00; good beer, $0.67 and so on.

Having taken care that the tavern keepers could not charge too much for drink, the court now provided that they should not over charge for food served, placing the score for a “single diet” at twenty-five cents, a most reasonable sum according to modern standards.

While having the power to regulate, the court was not without regulation from a superior source as the articles of incorporation show that in case of misconduct on the part of the mayor or any member of the board, the others would have power to remove him after the charges had been fully proved, and it further stipulated that should any person elected to office fail or refuse to serve, he should be fined according to the following scale: mayor, fifty pounds; recorder, forty pounds; alderman, thirty pounds; councilman, twenty-five pounds. In 1782 an amendment was passed by the legislature, enlarging the jurisdiction of the court to include all territory within one mile of the town limits.

The Famed “Peace Ball”

Fredericksburg was not long in recovering from the effects of the Revolution. It had suffered no physical damage, though it had lost a great deal of actual and potential value in the deaths of citizens who gave their lives for the cause. A magnificent Peace Ball was held, in 1784, in the assembly room over the old City Hall, at Main Street and “Market Alley,” which was attended by General Washington, General Lafayette, Rochambeau, Washington’s mother, who came leaning on his arm and all the notables and fashionables of the country. The town was soon again a thriving hustling center of trade and business.

New enterprises came as requirements of the times made themselves felt. In 1786 the Virginia Herald made its appearance, the first newspaper published in the town, and about the same time whipping posts, ducking stools, and pillories were established to keep down the criminal tendencies of the unlawfully inclined. In 1789 an act was passed, empowering the trustees of the Fredericksburg Academy to raise by lottery $4,000 to defray the expenses of erecting a building on the grounds for the accommodation of professors, a method of raising money that modern morals has outlawed. In 1795 the Episcopal Charity School was established by Archibald McPherson one of the splendid men of the town and in 1799 the town experienced its first serious fire, which was held by some to have been the work of an incendiary and by others as due to a wooden chimney. The council in an effort to assuredly exclude all danger of another such from either source, offered a reward of $500. for conviction of the incendiary, and passed an ordinance abolishing wooden chimneys, and stove pipes sticking through windows or the sides of houses, provided the buildings were not fire proof.

Commercial Development

From 1800 to 1850 Fredericksburg was the principal depot of trade and commerce for all that region between the Rappahannock river and the counties of Orange, Culpeper, Rapidan, Madison and Fauquier in addition to the contiguous territory and the great section lying between the town and the Chesapeake bay. Commerce with the upper country, however, was the most productive, for the lower country people were in close connection with the rivers and, as in those days all shipping was done by water ways, they shipped from wharves along the Rappahannock near their homes. They received much of their goods in this manner and were not so dependent upon the town as the upper country people who were forced to bring their products to Fredericksburg by wagon trains, which lumbered slowly down with their burdens of grain, produce and tobacco, and having unloaded and tarried awhile, lumbered back even more slowly, loaded with groceries, wines, liquors, household stores, plantation supplies, dry goods and merchandise for the country stores.

These wagons were of huge dimensions, “their curving bodies being before and behind at least twelve feet from the ground” according to one writer. They had canvas covers and were drawn by four horses always, sometimes six and eight, carrying jangling bells upon their collars. As many as two hundred of them were often on the streets or in the wagon yards of Fredericksburg at one time, making prosperity for the energetic merchants of that distant day, and bringing business for the many vessels, some of them large three masted schooners, which came from all parts of the globe to anchor at the wharves.

Fires Sweep the Town

At about this time Fredericksburg received two serious blows that greatly retarded its progress and prosperity. The first was in 1808, when nearly half the town was destroyed by a fire which broke out at the corner of Princess Anne and Lewis streets, where the Shepherd residence now stands, and fanned by a high wind quickly roared its way through the inflammable houses, such as most of the residences then were, until the town was half in ashes. At the outbreak of the fire most of the citizens were attending the races at “Willis Field,” just below the town, and before they could get back it had gained such headway that their efforts to check it were ineffectual. It is said the fire was caused by the overturning of a candle in the kitchen of the Stannard home, occupying the present site of the Shepherd residence, where refreshments were being prepared for the funeral of Mr. Stannard, and that the remains were gotten out of the house only with great difficulty on the part of the mourners. In those days funerals were accompanied by feasts, at which cake in sombre wrappings and wine in glasses with long black ribbons tied to the stems, were served.

Much of the brick construction on the upper business section of Main street, and a number of residences known as Colonial, are results of that fire, but deserve to be called Colonial as that period, architectually speaking, extended until about the year 1812. The Shepherd residence, of course, was built following the fire; the old Doswell home, now occupied by Mr. A. W. Rowe, probably was erected afterwards and the old Marye home, now owned by Mr. A. L. Jenkins, has a corner stone bearing the date 1812, the residence formerly occupying that site having been burned. However, most of the older residences in Fredericksburg antedate the fire, and are of an earlier Colonial period.

During The War of 1812

Another blow was the War of 1812, and though, as in the case of the Revolution, the city did not suffer actual physical damage, its business and trade were interrupted and severely decreased, if not totally stopped, due to the English dominance of the seas and during the course of that conflict, the commercial life must have been slow and stagnant.

Fredericksburg itself was for a time threatened when the English admiral, Cockburn, made a raid up the Rappahannock. Many thought his objective was Fredericksburg and General William Madison, brother of the President, summoned a small force which took up positions of defense, from which to repel the raider, but he never got up the river as far as the city, turning when much lower down and putting back to sea for a cause which history has not assigned. During this war, as had been the case in the Revolution, and was to be in the Civil war to come, the Mercer home, now occupied by Councilman George W. Heflin, which stands on an eminence on lower Main street commanding a splendid view of the river, was used as a post from which to watch for the approach of enemy ships, a use that has given it the name of “The Sentry Box.”

Following the War of 1812, Fredericksburg’s trade revived and increased, and the city settled down to a full enjoyment of that remarkably cultural era – the only classical civilization America has ever known – which lasted until the Civil war and which has been made famous in song and story and the history of the old South. The families of the early settlers had by now become wealthy; the plantation masters owned hundreds of slaves, farmed thousands of acres and lived in their handsome old Colonial mansions in the most magnificent style the times could afford. Surrounded by many servants and all the comforts known to the day, they entertained lavishly, kept splendidly stocked wine cellars, boasted of private race courses and keen thoroughbred hunters and racers, and, as the business of the plantations was largely in the hands of overseers, they were gentlemen of splendid leisure with an abundance of time opportunity and means to devote to sports, politics and literature. Most of them were educated abroad and were learned in the classics, clever and entertaining conversationalists, beautiful riders, excellent shots, and when not engaged in social or literary pursuits that kept them indoors, enjoyed the sports of the field, hunting to the hounds, gunning for quail, deer, bear, wild turkey or duck, or fishing in the abundantly supplied streams tributary to the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. Hard drinking was not unusual among them, but they were men of the highest sense of honor and principle, and were always true to an obligation.

While the townspeople did not enjoy life quite so lavishly as their plantation neighbors, they were not far behind; entertaining frequently and hospitably and mingling freely with the people from the country.

Care-Free Era of Gayety

But though it was a gay and carefree day, the times were not without their troubles. In 1822 the town was again visited by fire, this time originating at the site of the present Brent’s store, at Main and George streets, destroying the entire business block encompassed between Main and Princess Anne and George and Hanover streets. Recovery from this fire was rapid. The merchants were financially substantial and quickly rebuilt the burned area.

As early as 1822, Fredericksburg was an important postal point, the mail for five states being assorted and distributed in the city and sent thence to its final destination. The conduct of Postmaster General Meigs in regard to increasing the compensation of carriers on the Fredericksburg route without authorization from Congress, was the subject of an investigation by that body, but he was exonerated when it was explained that the increase was necessary because the mail had become so heavy that carriers were no longer able to handle it on horse back, being compelled to use surries, an added expense to them which justified the additional pay.

James Monroe, a former resident, lawyer and councilman of Fredericksburg, was at that time President of the United States, and though the town doubtless was a naturally important postal distribution, it may have been that the President’s influence had some bearing-on the selection of the place which had given him his political start.

The Town Grows Richer

For the next decade, the trade and commercial life of the town increased. The merchants and manufacturers – by this time several large industries of this character being in operation – were busy and prosperous and had begun to grow either wealthy, measured in the standards of the time, or were in very comfortable circumstances, while the citizenry, generally, was prosperous and free from want. The town was compactly built, many of its structures now being of brick, and was regularly laid out. The public buildings consisted of a courthouse, market house, clerks office, the Episcopal Orphan Asylum, the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and Reform Baptist Church. It had two banks, one female and one male academy of the higher class; a water system supplied through pipes from Poplar Spring. And the upper river canal was being built, a public enterprise from which great results were expected and which was to extend about forty miles up the Rappahannock. Gold was being mined in considerable quantities in upper Spotsylvania and lower Culpeper counties and brought to Fredericksburg in exchange for goods, and a generally thriving trade was being done, chiefly in grain, bacon, tobacco and other farm products for export. One writer has computed the city’s annual exports at that time as averaging four million dollars, and Government statistics show that there were in the town in 1840, seventy-three stores, two tanneries, one grist mill, two printing plants, four semi-weekly newspapers, five academies with 256 students, and seven schools with 165 scholars. The population in that year was 3,974. Ten years previous it had been 3,308, divided as follows: whites, 1,797; slaves, 1,124; free blacks, 387.

The City Limits Are Set

From 1840 until the middle fifties, prosperity was continued. The canal was completed and had brought about an increased business at a lower cost. A railroad was in operation from Richmond through Fredericksburg to Aquia Creek, and steamboats had to some extent taken the place of sailing vessels as a means of water transportation, meaning quicker trips with greater burdens. In 1851 the legislature passed an act empowering the town to extend its limits, which was done according to a survey made by William Slaughter, and though that was more than seventy years ago, and though the population has since more than doubled, overflowing the limits and encroaching on the adjoining county, the limits have not again been enlarged.

In 1855 Fredericksburg’s trade had ceased to grow at a rate equal to its average yearly increase for the previous twenty years, a condition for which the business men of that day were not altogether responsible, but which rather was brought about by the new commercial era the country and world was just entering – the era of railroad transportation, which quickly and cheaply, in comparison to past charges, carried the staples of the farm to the ports of the sea where waiting vessels stood ready to spread their sable sails on voyages to foreign markets. This era created the importance of the seaport and spelled the doom, as important shipping points, of the tidewater cities – those which had been located at the point where mountain torrent and still water meet in order to get both the advantage of power production and trade routes.

It is true that the business men of the city made the serious mistake about this period of building a plank road into one portion of the upper country from which they derived much trade, instead of building a railroad, for just a little later transportation by wagon train for export purposes had nearly entirely given away to transportation by rail, and Fredericksburg was utterly without such connection with its greatest field of trade, which soon was largely converted into other channels by the railroads now beginning to practically surround the town at a distance of approximately forty miles to the west. The single railroad passing through Fredericksburg had no coast terminal. Throughout its short length it paralleled the coast, offering no means of shipping for export, which comprised most of the business of the day. The plantation owners of the upper country who had dealt nearly entirely in Fredericksburg, now found it cheaper to haul to the railroad passing through their country and soon Fredericksburg was belted by little towns to the west. When later the P. F. & P. R. R. was built to Orange, it did not save the situation and except for lumber and ties, a trade it still largely enjoys, it has never hauled much to Fredericksburg for export, though it did help the city considerably in the matter of retail business.

Trade, however, had not ceased entirely to grow, nor the town to increase. In 1860 its population was nearly 5,000 persons, its business men still were active and prosperous and, but for the Civil war which was to come, they doubtless would have found a way out of the commercial difficulty confronting them and a different history of the town from that time forward might have been written.

The War Ends Prosperity

But over the course of a few years preceding this date, the community was troubled and torn by political strife and moral dissention. Black and ominous on the horizon of men’s thoughts loomed the slave question, perplexing the country’s leaders and giving threats of the red carnage that was to follow. A carnage that cost millions in men and money, caused unreckoned anguish and suffering, and retarded the growth of the South to such an extent that at the end of the following fifty years it had only just begun to emerge from the black shadow cast over it by the war.

By the end of the fifty’s, trade had almost ceased, a spirit of patriotism for the Southland superseded that of commercial enterprise, the quietness of the soft old Colonial town was broken by wild public meetings; soon the call of a bugle floated softly across the still air and the heavy monotonous tread of feet sounded against the ground in unison to the beating of drums, and though the citizens had been loyal to the Union, sending by nearly a two-thirds majority a Union man to the State convention, they made ready for the inevitable conflict, and when the flame of war burst on the country like a flaring torch, they threw in their lots with the land of their nativity and bravely shouldering their arms, marched away from their homes to a fate that would bring them death or sorrow, and reduce their land to a shambles. The story of the Civil war as it effected this town is told in other chapters which follow this.