Circuit Court in Fredericksburg

This is the front of the Circuit Court in Fredericksburg. The architect was James Renwick. The building was completed in 1852.

For more information about the architectural history of this building see "Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont", a publication of the Society of Architectural Historians in its Buildings of the United States series.

George Cary Eggleston

In the hunt for novels set in Virginia, I have come across an author named George Cary Eggleston. Although born in Indiana, several of his novels are set in Virginia. The following titles are all available at Microsoft Live Search at

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books

Dorothy South
Evelyn Byrd
Two Gentlemen from Virginia

Skyline of Fredericksburg

Another photo from my walk through Fredericksburg. Pictured here are two spires famous in the Fredericksburg skyline. On the left is St. George's Episcopal Church; on the right is the Circuit Court building. I overheard a tour guide (in one of the horse-drawn carriage tours) telling his passengers that the architect of the courthouse is James Renwick, perhaps better known as the architect of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C.

Catching a nap

In front of the Visitor's Center on Caroline Street tours in horse-drawn carriages are offered. Catching a nap between tours are two of the horses.

A Walk in Fredericksburg

Beautiful weather here in Fredericksburg, almost unheard of for a late-June day in Virginia. The temperature was in the low 80s, tolerable humidity, sunny. So out with my camera I went for a walk in Fredericksburg.

I began with the objective of photographing a couple more houses in which Betty Herndon Maury lived, locations provided to me by John Hennessy of the National Park Service: 700 Princess Anne Street, above, now occupied by a law firm)(above);

and a building known as The Chimneys, now occupied by a bakery.

Historic Fredericksburg - by John T. Goolrick

Following is the preface to John T. Goolrick's HISTORIC FREDERICKSBURG, The Story of an Old Town, available at Google books at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=4UkOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13&dq=goolrick

This is a lovely book about my favorite town. The beginning of the preface captures the essence of Fredericksburg as it is even today, 86 years after it was written.

HISTORIC FREDERICKSBURG
The Story of an Old Town

By John T. Goolrick

Whittet & Shepperson
Richmond VA, 1922

FREDERICKSBURG
A Preface

Fredericksburg sprawls at the foot of the hills where the scented summer winds sweep over it out of the valley of brawling waters above. The grass grows lush in the meadows and tangles in the hills that almost surround it. In spring the flowers streak the lowlands, climb on the slopes, and along the ridges; and Autumn makes fair colors in the trees, shading them in blood crimson, weathered bronze, and the yellow of sunsets.

Over its shadowed streets hangs the haze of history. It is not rich nor proud, because it has not sought; it is quiet and content, because it has sacrificed. It gave its energy to the Revolution. It gave its heart to the Confederacy; and, once when it was thundered at by guns, and red flames twisted in its crumbling homes, it gave its soul and all it possessed to the South. It never abated its loyalty nor cried out its sorrows.

In Fredericksburg, and on the battlefields near it, almost thirty thousand men lay on the last couch in the shadowy forests and – we think – heard Her voice calling and comforting them. To the wounded, the Old Town gave its best, not visioning the color of the uniforms, nursing them back to life: And, broken and twisted and in poverty, it began to rebuild itself and gather up the shattered ideals of its dead past.

Out of its heart has grown simple kindness; out of its soul simple faith.

As I look out over the streets, *I knew them well when Lee and Jackson and Stuart, Lincoln and Grant and Hancock knew them too), they shimmer in the Autumn sun. Over them, as has ever seemed to me, hangs an old and haunting beauty. There may not be as great men here as long ago, but here are their descendants and the descendants of others like them. And he who comes among them will find loyal hearts and warm hand-clasps.

Ah, I know the old town. My bare feet ran along its unpaved walks and passed the cabins many a time in slavery days. I knew it in the Civil War and reconstruction days, and on and on till now: And it has not failed its duty.

Fredericksburg's history brims with achievement and adventure. It has not been tried in this volume to tell all of these. I have tried to tell a simple story, with the flame of achievement burning on the shrines and the echoes of old days sweeping through it, like low winds in the pine woods; to make men and women more vivid than dates and numbers. I have tried to be accurate and complete and to vision the past, but above all, I have loved the things of which I have written.

There is no possibility of expressing the gratitude the author feels for the aid given him by others, but he must say, briefly, that without the assistance of Miss Dora Jett, Mrs. Franklin Stearns, Mrs. John T. Goolrick, and Dr. J. N. Barney, Mr. Chester B. Goolrick and Mr. John T. Goolrick, Jr., the book could not have been made as readable as we hope the public will find it. We owe just as deep thanks to Miss Sally Gravatt of the Wallace Library.

Jno. T. Goolrick.
Fredericksburt, Va.
October 25, 1921