What to See in Fredericksburg - Top Sights and Attractions

Historical place in Stafford County, Virginia. Chatham Manor is a Georgian-style mansion home completed in 1771 by farmer and statesman William Fitzhugh, after about three years of construction, on the Rappahannock River in Stafford County, Virginia, opposite Fredericksburg. It was for more than a century the center of a large, thriving plantation, and the only private residence in the United States to be visited by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Chatham also reflected the new country's racial tensions. In January 1805, Chatham's slaves overpowered and whipped their overseer and assistants in a minor slave rebellion. An armed posse of white men quickly gathered. They killed one slave in the attack, and two more died trying to escape capture. Two other slaves were deported, likely to the Caribbean or Louisiana, and Fitzhugh soon sold the property.

Five decades later, in 1857, owner Hannah Jones Coalter, died and attempted to manumit her 93 slaves after making provision both for her daughter and the slaves. Her relatives sued, claiming that after the Dred Scott decision, slaves were legally incapable of choosing whether to remain enslaved or receive their freedom and enough money to establish themselves in another state. While local judges thought the executors should free the slaves per Hannah's intent, a divided Virginia Supreme Court disagreed. Thus, the executors sold Chatham with its slaves to J. Horace Lacy, although soon one slave was allowed to travel to raise money to buy freedom for herself and her small family, and succeeded.

During the American Civil War, the Lacys abandoned Chatham. Its strategic site overlooking Fredericksburg briefly served as Union headquarters, and later as the major Union hospital during battles for control of the strategic Virginia city and Spotsylvania County en route to the Confederate capital. Due to wartime use and disuse, Chatham fell into great disrepair. The Lacys ultimately sold Chatham to pay taxes in 1872. Saved from total destruction as the 20th century began by a series of wealthy American owners, Chatham was refurbished and became a showpiece. The estate was willed to the National Park Service in 1975 and now serves as the headquarters for the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.^[1]

Museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Kenmore, also known as Kenmore Plantation, is a plantation house at 1201 Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Built in the 1770s, it was the home of Fielding and Betty Washington Lewis and is the only surviving structure from the 1,300-acre Kenmore plantation.

The house is architecturally notable for the remarkable decorative plaster work on the ceilings of many rooms on the first floor. In 1970 the property was declared a National Historic Landmark.

Kenmore is owned and operated as a house museum by The George Washington Foundation (formerly George Washington's Fredericksburg Foundation), and is open daily for guided tours. The Foundation also owns nearby Ferry Farm, where George Washington lived as a child.^[3]

Building in Stafford County, Virginia. Ferry Farm is the name of the farm and home at which George Washington spent much of his childhood. The site is located in Stafford County, Virginia, along the northern bank of the Rappahannock River, across from the city of Fredericksburg. In July 2008, archaeologists announced that they had found remains of the boyhood home, which had suffered a fire during 1740, including artifacts such as pieces of a cream-colored tea set probably belonging to George's mother, Mary Ball Washington. In 2015, the George Washington Foundation began constructing a replica of Washington's boyhood home on the site of the original building. The replica house was completed in 2018 and is open to the public.^[8]

Building in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Farmers Bank of Fredericksburg, also known as The National Bank of Fredericksburg, is a historic bank building located at Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was built in 1819–20, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, rectangular red-brick building in the Federal style. It features a slate-covered front gable roof with a lunette window in the front pediment, wide cornice, three pairs of brick chimneys, and engaged pedestal columns with full entablature on the front facade. The front portion of the main floor had been used as a banking house since its construction, while the rooms at the rear and those on the second floor housed the bank's cashiers and their families from 1820 to 1920. In 2016, after completing renovations to the inside of the building, the building was converted into a restaurant while keeping the existing bank vault as a private dining area.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.^[10]