It was time to head back
to Beez Neez, we ate a hearty breakfast, bade our farewells to Bob, Joan and
Kathy, our hosts at Woodward House B+B, Front Royal and headed for Deltaville.
Forty nine miles south of Washington D.C., we began to see
signs that indicated we were entering an important area, central to some
of the major battles of the Civil War. We stopped in the town of Fredericksburg, parked next to the Tourist Information
Centre; where three ladies welcomed us. After chatting about the area, we
watched a film about the towns history, then set off on a bimble.
Located near where the
Rappahannock
River crosses the Fall
Line, Fredericksburg developed, as the
frontier of colonial Virginia shifted west out of the coastal
plain. The land on which the city was
founded was part of a tract patented in 1671. The Virginia General
Assembly established a fort on the
Rappahannock in 1676, just below the present-day city. In 1714, Lt. Gov.
Alexander
Spotswood sponsored a German
settlement called Germanna on the Rapidan
River, a tributary of the Rappahannock
upstream from the future site of the city and led an expedition westward over
the Blue Ridge
Mountains in 1716.
As interest in the
frontier grew, the colonial assembly responded by forming a new county named
Spotsylvania (after the
governor) in 1720 and establishing Fredericksburg in 1728 as a port for the
county, of which it was then a part. Named for Frederick, Prince
of Wales, son of King George
II, the colonial town's streets bore
the names of members of the royal family. The county court was moved to
Fredericksburg in 1732, and the town served as county
seat until 1780, when the courthouse
was moved closer to the county centre. Fredericksburg was incorporated as a
town, with its own court,
council and mayor in 1781. It received its charter as an independent
city in 1879. The city adopted its present city
manager/council form of government in 1911.
The station
and what we think is a fancy signal box or some
such
The city's development
and success was based on other significant residents, enslaved
Africans with varied
skills, who were critical to its growth. "Slaves worked on plantations, on the docks, in iron
industries, mining and quarries, mercantile businesses, construction, domestic
services, and others were skilled blacksmiths, coopers, cobblers and draymen.
African Americans were vital in the development of the
area."
During the 19th century,
Fredericksburg sought to maintain its sphere of trade but with limited success.
It promoted the development of a canal on the Rappahannock
and construction of a turnpike and plank
road to bind the interior country to
the market town. By 1837, a north-south railroad, which became the Richmond,
Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad,
linked the town to Richmond, the state capital. A much-needed railroad joining the
town to the farming region to the west was not finished until after the Civil
War.
Fredericksburg, Virginia, March
1863. View from across the Rappahannock
River. To the right is the steeple of the Baptist
Church and toward the center is the tower of St. George's
Church.
“I have seen many towns........ vieing with each other as specimens of
the effects of war’s handiwork,” wrote an English correspondent, “but it seems
to me that if any spot on earth can fitly represent the abomination of
desolation that spot is Fredericksburg..............”
During the
Civil
War, Fredericksburg gained strategic
importance due to its location midway between Washington and Richmond,
the opposing capitals of the Union and the Confederacy. During the
Battle of
Fredericksburg, 11th to the 15th of
December 1862, the town sustained significant damage from bombardment and
looting by the Union forces. A Second Battle of
Fredericksburg was fought in and
around the town on the 3rd of May 1863, in connection with the Chancellorsville campaign
(27th of April 1863 – 6th of May 1863). The battles of the
Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court
House were fought nearby in May
1864.
The
information boards and Civil War memorabilia were very
interesting
After the war,
Fredericksburg recovered its former position as a center of local trade and
slowly grew beyond its prewar boundaries. The University of Mary
Washington was founded there in 1908
as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women. Adopting the name of Mary
Washington College in 1938, the college was for many years associated with the
University of
Virginia as a women's liberal arts
college. The college became independent of UVA and began to accept men in 1970.
Recently, the college changed names from Mary Washington College to the University of Mary Washington. A separate campus for
graduate and professional studies is located in suburban Stafford
County.
The power
chord of modern guitar was first
developed by Link
Wray in Fredericksburg in 1958 during
his first improvisation of the instrumental piece "Rumble", a single released by Wray & His Ray Men. The local
music scene includes a wide variety of genres.
We have never seen a
sign quite like this before - a grim reminder of the cost of
war
On the road heading out of town we saw many ‘cute’ little houses and passed
the sign for Middlesex School
We even found a ‘One Careful
Owner’ – just
As we neared our turning for Deltaville it
was funny to see Kilmarnock and Gloucester
ALL IN ALL TIME TO GO
HOME TO BEEZ
NEEZ
