A Neighborhood to Explore 49th annual candlelight tour By Jan Walton
49th Annual This year’s Candlelight Tour, to be held December 14–15, explores a neighborhood whose history began more than a hundred years before the American Revolution. It barely survived the devastation of the Civil War but recovered to become one of Fredericksburg’s iconic neighborhoods. What we know today as the Upper Caroline Street neighborhood, has its roots in a 17th century land patent of 812 acres granted to Captain Thomas Hawkins, a close friend of the earliest Washingtons. George Washington’s brother-in-law, Fielding Lewis, and brother, Charles Washington, owned property in the neighborhood. Charles Washington’s home is now a tourist attraction—the Rising Sun Tavern—and Lewis’s store is headquarters of Historic Fredericksburg Foundation.
In the e a r l y nineteenth c e n t u r y , s e v e r a l p l a n n e d suburbs were laid out on the fringes of Fredericksburg and named after the land speculators who developed and financed them. Henry Fitzhugh was among those investors. He divided his land into residential lots, naming the area “Fitzhughtown.” Two houses on this year’s Candlelight Tour, 1513 and 1517 Caroline Street, are on Fitzhughtown lots. Upper Caroline continued to develop as a diverse neighborhood in the 1800s. The 1860 Census reveals that individuals working as shoemakers, washwomen, plasterers, weavers, and stone masons lived side by side with more affluent residents, including a carriage maker, barrel maker, loom boss in a factory, and a dry goods merchant. The impact of the Civil War on the upper Caroline neighborhood was
devastating. On December 11, 1862, Union engineers attempted to build three pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock. The northernmost crossing terminated at Hawke Street, just one block south of this year’s Candlelight Tour properties. As Confederate riflemen fired on the bridge builders, Union commanders responded with a massive artillery bombardment. The shelling of Fredericksburg destroyed about 100 structures. Two beams in the Rising Sun Tavern’s roof were cut through by artillery fire. Despite the bombardment, Confederate sharpshooters, entrenched in cellars and doorways, could not be immediately dislodged. When Union infantry finally crossed the river, intense street fighting ensued, along with indiscriminate looting. Among the streets most closely associated with the fighting were those on this year’s tour—Fauquier, Hawke, Pitt, and Canal. After the war, Frederickburg’s residents were left to rebuild in a shattered economy. It took nearly a generation for the town to begin to prosper again. The houses on this year’s
tour—built between 1870 and 1911— echo that slow recovery. They illustrate not only Fredericksburg’s eventual renewal but also the contrasts that came to define Upper Caroline’s character. 1513 Caroline, constructed shortly after the war in 1870, was built for James Ryan, an Irish immigrant and stone mason. It represents the many post-war working-class residences of this diverse neighborhood. In contrast, in 1911, the late Victorian homes at 1308 and 1310 Caroline were built by G.B. Wallace, a prominent Fredericksburg citizen who served as Commonwealth’s Attorney for 20 years. These properties symbolize the neighborhood’s wide diversity of architectural styles and residents’ socioeconomic levels, offering a vivid glimpse into a rich history.
Jan Waltonen is a vplunteer on the HFFI Marker Committee, photo courtesy of HFFI Candlight Tour , Dec 14-1 15 Upper Caroline Neighborhood tkts: hffi.org ; office,:1200 Caroline St
front porch fredericksburg
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