Middleburg, Virginia

“ Williamsburg does not contain above a hundred and fifty houses, and is the only town we have yet seen in Virginia worth mentioning not situated on the banks of any river. What makes the situation of this place valuable, is the neighbourhood of James and York rivers, between which grows the best tobacco in the whole State, and for this reason it seems to have been built where it is: I do not think, nevertheless, that it will ever be a place of any great importance; the towns of York, James, Norfolk, and Edenton, being more favourably situated for trade, will undoubtedly eclipse it. ”

“ We demand for our own citizens perfect equality of rights with those of the empire States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, but we ask for nothing that we will not cheerfully concede to those of Delaware and Rhode Island. ”

“ The old, one and a half story frame house, which stands on the east side of Princess Ann street, between Prussia and Wolfe streets, just below Shiloh Baptist church (new site) , was at one time owned by James Monroe. He was elected to a seat in the Legislature, and the law required that members of the General Assembly should be owners of real estate. In order to make him eligible his uncle gave him a pocket deed to this house and lot. This was the first civil office, except that of Common Councilman of Fredericksburg, Mr. Monroe ever held. ”

“ Williamsburg, 20th August, 1716.—In the morning got my horses ready, and what baggage was necessary, and I waited on the [Pg 28] Governor who was in readiness for an expedition over the Appalachian mountains. We breakfasted and about ten got on horseback, and, at four came to the Brickhouse, upon York River, where we crossed the ferry and at six came to Mr. Austin Moore’s house [13] on Mattapony River, in King William County; here we lay all night and were well entertained. ”

“ As early as 1796 Fredericksburg was an important commercial center, and manufactories of various kinds were in operation. Iron works and mills and other industries were successfully prosecuted, and the trade of the town, in the general merchandise department, was in the hands of public-spirited, energetic merchants ”

“ At present we have but two school buildings, one at the corner of Main and Lewis streets, known as the Union House, and the other at the corner of Princess Ann and Wolfe streets. The historical Union House, used by the white pupils, was built in the first part of the last century by a Mr. Ross for a residence and is quite substantial, being constructed of brick and spacious, and is three stories high, with a basement. Mr. Ross was a Frenchman, and royally entertained Gen. Lafayette and his retinue when he visited Fredericksburg in 1824. ”

“ Some of them agreed with Sergeant Montague that to confer such vast and vague powers upon a mercantile corporation was unconstitutional. In a debate in Parliament in 1614 a member of the Company named Middleton attacked the charter on the ground that trade with Virginia and agriculture there needed more strict regulation than it was getting. "The shopkeepers of London," he said, "sent over all kinds of goods, for which they received tobacco instead of coin, infinitely to the prejudice of the Commonwealth. Many of the divines now smell of tobacco, and poor men spend 4d. ”

“ He confided to Middleton that Blair was a Whig, because her father was one; but that a girl did not know any better, and that she really did not know the difference between them.
The entertainment consisted of dancing—quadrilles and “the Lancers,” and after awhile, the old Virginia reel. In the first, all the young people joined, and in the last, some of the old ones as well. Middleton heard Steve urging their host’s sister, Miss Gray—“Cousin Thomasia” as Steve called her—a sweet patrician-faced lady, to come and dance with him, and when she smilingly refused, teasing her about Major Legaie. ”

“ Out of the grave came all the dead Puritan ancestors of Mr. Middleton, a long procession back to Massachusetts Bay. The elders of Salem who had ordained that a man should not smoke within five miles of a house, the lawgivers who had prescribed the small number, brief length, and sad color of ribbons a woman might wear and who forbade a man to kiss his wife on Sunday, all these righteous and uncomfortable folk stirred in Mr. Middleton’s blood and obsessed him. ”

“ The Common Council that took charge of municipal affairs in 1870 had many grave and difficult questions to meet and determine. Debts had accumulated against the city, while the taxable values had greatly diminished by the destruction of property during the war and the emancipation of the slaves. A large portion of the inhabitants had recently returned home—the women and children from refugeeing and the men from the army—almost penniless, to find their homes in ruins or badly damaged and despoiled of what had been left in them. Nearly everybody had to commence life anew. ”

“ Besides hundreds of invited guests from different parts of the United States, distinguished men and ladies, President Cleveland and nearly the entire cabinet and their wives, Vice-President Stevenson and Mrs. Stevenson, United States Senators, Representatives in Congress, Governor O’Ferrall and his staff, two members of the Supreme Court of the United States—Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Harlan—were present. The crowd was so immense that the ground seemed to tremble under their tread. It was the biggest day Fredericksburg ever had in the memory of man. ”

“ And as the inhabitants of the town increased in numbers, and the little building became too small to accommodate all who would wish to attend upon the House of the Lord, the authorities were not too much engrossed with money-making and money-getting to enlarge the church and provide for the spiritual comfort and necessities of the increasing population. ”

“ It is true that those who estimate a place solely by the number of industrial enterprises which it encourages, or the amount of traffic which comes to it, would not rank Fredericksburg as highly as some of the more busy or bustling towns of other parts of the country, but those who recognize other agencies besides water wheels and steam engines, and other earthly products, besides dry goods, groceries and general merchandise, will find much here to admire and interest them. ”

“ Here was the home and birthplace of men who commanded armies, controlled navies, swayed statesmen, electrified assemblies, and many of those homes and birth-houses are still standing, and it will appear but natural if they shall be pointed out and written about by the inhabitants of Fredericksburg with patriotic pride. Notwithstanding the quaint architecture of many of them, and the ravages of time upon them, they are dear to us and are regarded as heirlooms of the town which have witnessed the advent and exit of many generations. ”

“ It is not stated in what part of the town the first poor house was located, but for many years before the Civil war it was located on the Lang property, near Gunnery spring, and afterwards the poor were quartered in a brick house near the western limit of Princess Elizabeth street, which was rented for the purpose and which is now owned by the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad Company.
After the war, for about eighteen years, the poor were maintained at the private houses, with such families as would agree to take them. ”

“ If we should draw a circle around this ancient city, with a radius of less than fifty miles, we should find within that narrow compass the birthplace of George Washington, of Thomas Jefferson, of James Madison, of James Monroe, of Zachary Taylor, of Chief-Justice John Marshall, of the Lees of the Revolution, of Patrick Henry, of Henry Clay, of Matthew Maury and of Robert E. Lee. ”

“ The conclusion is inevitable: Isaac Maddison left no male descendants, and President Madison's earliest ancestor in Virginia, if it was not his great-grandfather John, must be looked for somewhere else.
Mr. Rives knew nothing of these Records. His first volume was published before either Sainsbury's Calendar or Hotten's Lists; and the researches on which he relied, "conducted by a distinguished member of the Historical Society of Virginia" in the English State Paper Office, were, so far as they related to the Madisons, incomplete and worthless. ”

“ About the year 1832 the religious movement, in which Alexander Campbell was the leader, began in Fredericksburg. A number of citizens, adopting the views held by Mr. Campbell, were organized into a Christian or Disciples church. With commendable energy and zeal they went to work, purchased a lot and erected quite a comfortable church building on Main street, between Amelia and Lewis streets. The church prospered until the breaking out of [Pg 214] the Civil war, when, like those of the other churches, its members were scattered and church services were suspended. ”

“ It is the first time that your society has held one of its annual reunions on southern soil, and, in making this new departure, it was preëminently fit that you should honor Fredericksburg with your choice.
A French philosopher has written, “Happy the people whose annals are tiresome,” but the far nobler and more inspiring thought of the Anglo-Saxon race is that “character constitutes the true strength of nations and historic glory their best inheritance.”
As American citizens you are proud of the grand traditions and heroic memories that crowd your country’s history ”

“ Fredericksburg is regularly laid out and compactly built; many of its buildings are brick. The principal public buildings are a courthouse, clerk’s office, a jail, a market-house, an orphan asylum, one Episcopal, one Presbyterian, one Methodist, one Baptist and one Reform Baptist church. ”

“ The new charter for the town, granted under the new State constitution, was passed by the Legislature and approved by the Governor on the 23rd of March, 1871. It differed very much from the charter under which the town was governed before the war, both as to new offices provided for and the term of officers. The officers to be elected by the people were one Mayor, who should hold his office for two years; twelve Councilmen, who should hold for one year ”

“ And what nobler work for the hearts and hands of Southern women, than upon its summit to rear a monument to the unrecorded Confederate dead, which, through all time shall testify to the gratitude of the people for whom they so gloriously died? As no State, and scarcely a town or county throughout the limits of the late Confederacy, is unrepresented on these battle-fields, may we not hope that the coöperation required in order to accomplish our holy work will be as universal? ”

“ Some years before the Revolutionary war, the colony of Virginia had become restless under British dominion. There had been, here and there, open expressions of discontent, and a growing resentment, if not positive hostility, against the mother country. In fact, nowhere more than in Virginia, and especially in this section, had the spirit of independence more steadily grown; and when the time came for decision and concert of action by the colonies, public opinion here was ripe to break down the old barriers, and to resist, with force, the power of England. ”

“ The records concerning the town reach back only to the close of the Revolutionary war. If Major Lawrence Smith, who constructed the fort and governed the settlers by military law or “as a county court might do,” ever kept any records of his acts, we have been unable to find them, and the same is true of the Trustees who had the management of the town from the time it was “laid out by law,” until it was chartered by the Legislature of Virginia. ”

“ So notorious was this, that it became one of the jokes of contemporary playwrights, not only that men bankrupt in purse and character were 'food for the Plantations' (and this before the settlement of New England) , but also that any drab would suffice to wive such pitiful adventurers. 'Never choose a wife as if you were going to Virginia,' says Middleton in one of his comedies. The mule is apt to forget all but the equine side of his pedigree. How early the counterfeit nobility of the Old Dominion became a topick of ridicule in the Mother Country may be learned from a play of Mrs. ”

“ Looking to the future, we cannot doubt that the Middlesborough district is destined to have no rival in any part of the world, for even now its works compete in magnitude with those of our old iron fields. ”

“ If the morals and correct lives of the people of a town are to be judged by the number of churches within its borders, giving due consideration to the number of inhabitants, the people of Fredericksburg would be rated with the best. One of the first things that received the attention of the founders of the town, under the charter granted by the House of Burgesses in 1727, was the building of a house of worship and its dedication to the service of the Almighty, and since that time Fredericksburg has been blessed with regular divine services. ”

“ As time progressed population increased. The old citizens who had refugeed returned to their homes; young and middle-aged men, who had faithfully served their country in the army, exchanged their weapons of war for the implements of peace, and business began to assume its legitimate channels and the old town was well nigh restored to its wonted activity and prosperity. The census of 1870, very imperfectly taken, gave Fredericksburg at that time a population of about four thousand inhabitants. ”

“ For governor of Virginia the council appointed Thomas West, third Baron Delaware, whose younger brother, Francis West, we have seen helping John Smith to browbeat the Indians at Werowocomoco and Pamunkey. This Lord Delaware belonged to a family distinguished for public service. On the mother's side he was nearly related to Queen Elizabeth. In America he is forever identified with the history of Virginia, and he has left a name to one of our great rivers, to a very interesting group of Indians, and to one of the smallest states in our Union. With New England, too, he has one link of association ”