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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…

“Concord,” standing by at least 1730, may be Stafford’s oldest standing dwelling. Shown here prior to preservation, it is being lovingly rehabilitated by Rick and Jerrilynn MacGregor. The MacGregor family purchased the home in the 1850s and lived there through the Civil War. Concord Concord

he Barnes House on Washington Street in Falmouth was built around 1780. Differences in its roof-line indicate it was built in stages.  It was owned by Joseph Ficklen of Belmont sometime before 1850 when he sold it to Harrison Barnes.  It witnessed the Civil War, as it was captured on paper by an artist in…

Shelton Cottage in Falmouth along River Road stands in contrast to Basil Gordon House and Moncure Conway House (houses of prosperous merchants and businessmen). It represents what a colonial workingman might aspire to possess in his own right – a far cry from his peers in Great Britain. It was moved to its present location…

The stately Federal-period Moncure Conway House in Falmouth is one of Stafford’s historic treasures.  The home was associated earlier with the Vass and Beale families.  It was the boyhood home of Moncure Daniel Conway, the South’s most prominent abolitionist.  During the Civil War it was used as a Union hospital. The current owners, Norman and…

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…

The home was built between 1810-1818 by William Irving (Irvine), the house was named “Hartwood” – “Hart” being old English for deer. Bricks for the main house were both “ballast brick”-taken from ocean-going sailing ships arriving in Falmouth harbor and on-site. The original Irving estate was over 5,000 acres. William Irvine was an Irish immigrant.…

Oak Grove Baptist Church was founded in 1873.  Its original name was St. Ross Baptist Church which was housed in a log cabin.  Some of its first members were out of First Mount Zion Baptist Church, Dumfries, Virginia.  In 1879, a group of concerned parents held a meeting to strive for the advancement of their children’s education…