On a hill above Falmouth Towne overlooking the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg stands a white manor house appropriately named “Clearview.”  Although much of the early history of the house is either sketchy or unknown, it is thought to have been built around 1740.

Until recently, the house and the land on which it is situated were owned by the family of the late Mr. and Mrs. Micheal Wallace, who moved to “Clearview” in 1917.  The earliest of their ancestors to live there was Mary Wallace, daughter of Dr. Micheal Wallace, formerly of Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland.  After becoming the wife of Dr. Andrew Buchanan before the Revolutionary War, she and her husband went to “Clearview” to live.  Dr. Buchanan used the small house in the yard, thought to have predated “Clearview” itself, as his office.  Later, their son William, who by that time had become a barrister, used the same little building as his office.

The farm passed through several hands between being sold by the Buchanans and bought by the Scotts, probably between 1845 and 1850.  Misses Mary and Fanny Scott and their aunt Mrs. McNeil were living there at the time of the Civil War when 10,000 Federal troops were encamped on their hill.  The three Southern ladies coexisted with the officers who had taken up quarters within the house itself.

The story is told of an incident in which Miss Fanny accosted some soldiers preparing to place a cannon in an outside chimney corner, from which point of vantage it could fire toward Fredericksburg.  She told them that such an act would surely kill her aunt who was ill in the house at the time.  Whether it was her caustic tongue, her power of persuasion, or the soldiers’ sympathy for the plight of the aunt one will never know; but the canon was not fired!

After the war, based on the loyalty of one Scott sister and the testimony by a Union general, she received half the requested compensation from the Federal Government.

“Clearview” is now owned by the Falmouth Baptist Church.

(photo: Stafford County Historic Resources Study)