Author Archive for: HFFI Staff
Entries by HFFI Staff
Upper Caroline Neighborhood History
Researched by Jan Waltonen & Roger Engels, HFFI Marker Committee Written by Jan Waltonen Article compiled for the 2019 Candlelight Tour. Properties on the tour included the Rising Sun Tavern, 1308, 1309, 1310, 1513, and 1517 Caroline Street. This year’s Candlelight Tour (CLT) explores a neighborhood whose history began more than a hundred years before […]
Good-bye Summer (thanks for 200 years of hard work!)
By Danae Peckler, Architectural Historian / HFFI Board Member If you have visited the Lewis Store at any point in the past couple of years, you might have caught a glimpse of it. Exposed, sagging, and broken. The building’s old summer beam, that is. Defined by preservation professionals in An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern […]
Historic Bricks and Mortar
by Natalie Chavez and Danae Peckler; edited by Linda Billard The Lewis Store, HFFI’s headquarters, is the embodiment of honest brick construction in a classic Georgian architectural style from the mid-eighteenth century. This mass masonry brick building has multiple wythes, or vertical sections of brick wall, laid in two different bonds. The Lewis Store’s elevation […]
Library marks Golden Anniversary
Written by Nancy Moore Fifty years ago this month, the Central Rappahannock Regional Library was launched as a demonstration library serving Fredericksburg and surrounding counties. Trustees of Fredericksburg’s Wallace Library, established in 1908, realized that the small city library could not adequately serve the area’s growing population. The Wallace trustees considered building a new library on Washington Avenue […]
“Battle of the Silversmith House” fought in 1962
Written by Wendy Migdal, Edits by Linda Billard, HFFI Volunteers Soon after the Revolutionary War, a small one-and-a-half story wooden house was built on Sophia Street. Its address would not become 813 until years later. It rested on a shelf of shale by the river and had two levels of basements. Other than that, it […]
It Takes a Village…To Save an Old House
It Takes a Village…To Save an Old House By Wendy Migdal, HFFI Volunteer Sometimes houses, like people, fall on hard times. Life throws challenges their way, and they don’t always have the resources to keep up. If they have a network of people willing to labor on their behalf, they can bounce back. If not, […]
Cooperation for Preservation of Historic Properties
Cooperation for Preservation of Historic Properties by David James, HFFI Board President Since 1955, the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Inc. (HFFI) has been devoted to protecting and preserving historic structures and landscapes of our city that give it a true sense of place and authenticity. Recognizing that each modification of an historic building could impact the […]
Ducking Stools in Fredericksburg
Ducking Stools in Fredericksburg By: Michael Spencer Ducking stools, “an instrument of punishment for nags, gossips, witches, and difficult individuals”, often consisted of a “…chair suspended from a sweeplike pole” that would be lowered into water.[1] While used throughout Europe during the medieval period, it was also used here in Virginia until the 19th […]