1201 Princess Anne Street

This massive brick Federal-style home was built on the site where the Fredericksburg Fire of 1807 began.  That house did not survive; the northern end was built in 1817 by Robert Mackey.  It was said that the house bankrupted Mackey and was thus known as Mackey’s Folly.  Prior to the Civil War, Thomas Fitzhugh Knox, Jr., owned the house.  In 1856, Knox bought 1200 Princess Anne from the Lomax family estate and moved across the street.  The oldest Knox son, Robert Taylor always wondered why.  Joseph Alsop owned the house during the Civil War.  His daughter, Lizzie, kept a diary and wrote of the plundering and looting of the house following the Battle of Fredericksburg. George Shepherd bought 1201 from the Alsops and the house remained in the Shepherd family for nearly one hundred years and was known as the Shepherd House.  The Victorian style additions on the south end of the house were added by the Shepherds.  Between 1965 and 1969, an elegant and expensive restaurant, the Prince Frederick Arms operated in the structure.