Site Search

James Hunter’s Iron Works also provided hardware for the building of several warships, including the Dragon, that was built on the Rappahannock River a short distance downstream from Falmouth. Hunter supplied naval stores for ships built on the Eastern Shore, at Mattaponi, Smithfield, and Fredericksburg (Morgan 142, 188, 1120, 1312).  The best known of these…

The Patawomeck tribe of Virginia Indians was based in Stafford County, Virginia, along the Potomac River (Patawomeck is another spelling of Potomac). The Patawomeck tribe was granted state heritage recognition in February 2010. In the 17th century, at the time of early English colonization, the tribe was a component of the Powhatan Confederacy. At times…

The county has owned the 1840s-era building on the corner of Gordon Street and River Road since 2006.  The Counting House is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and sits within the Falmouth Historic District, which is already on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.  The Counting…

Experience Hunter’s Iron Works during the Revolutionary War through an interactive virtual experience: Virtual Reality experience of Hunter’s Iron Works Click the button below to launch the museum in a new window: Visit Online VR Museum

Marker inscription: In this vicinity stood Peyton’s Ordinary. George Washington, going to Fredericksburg to visit his mother, dined here, March 6, 1769. On his way to attend the House of Burgesses, he spent the night here, October 31, 1769, and stayed here again on September 14, 1772. Rochambeau’s Army, marching north from Williamsburg in 1782,…

Marker inscription: Palmer Hayden, artist, was born Peyton Cole Hedgeman nearby in Widewater. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and later studied art at Columbia University and Boothbay Harbor, Maine. He achieved prominence as a painter during the Harlem Renaissance. A first prize in a painting competition sponsored by the Harmon…

Marker inscription: The first known permanent English Roman Catholic settlers in Virginia, Giles Brent, his sister Margaret, and other family members, emigrated here from Maryland by 1650. In May 1861, Confederates built artillery batteries on the bluffs overlooking Aquia Landing at the creek’s mouth on the Potomac River. An early clash between U.S. Naval vessels…

The land on which this home was built was originally owned by Mary Ball Washington, George’s mother, when she was just five years of age.  She retained it until 1778.  The land passed to a Ball descendant, Jane Downman, who married Henry Fitzhugh in 1837.  The newlyweds constructed the house in the late 1830s or…