Fredericksburg, Virginia 1608-1908. Author:Sylvanius Jackson Quinn

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СКАЧАТЬ of wills and deeds and grant administrations in as full and ample manner as the county courts could or might do. But no will was to be admitted to proof and no administration was to be granted unless the parties were citizens and residents of the town at the time of their death, and no deeds for conveyance of land were to be admitted to record unless the lands conveyed lay within the limits of the corporation. The court was empowered and authorized to appoint a person skilled in the law to prosecute for the Commonwealth and pay him a reasonable salary for his services, and when the Attorney for the Commonwealth was appointed for the town, it was to be exempt from paying any part of the salary of the Attorney for the Commonwealth of Spotsylvania county.

      RAPID GROWTH OF THE TOWN.

      On the petition of sixty-four of the leading citizens of the town, property owners and tax payers, complaining that certain provisions and requirements of the original charter of the town, granted in 1727, had not been enforced by the Council and complied with by lot owners, the Common Council, in 1782, passed an order which resulted in great benefit to the town in the way of improving vacant lots, erecting buildings and furnishing permanent homes for artisans, mechanics and laboring men. In the memorial submitted to the Council, these property owners complained of "being frequently subjected to the payment of many heavy Taxes and charges for the general benefit and improvement of the said Town of which many proprietors of unimproved Lotts pay no part, although their property is thereby daily rendered more valuable; That the proprietors of said Lotts, although wealthy, will neither build on them, nor sell to those who would, unless for exorbitant prices, by means whereof Rents are high and many useful tradesmen are prevented from residing in the said Town, to remedy which your petitioners pray that you, as Guardians of the said Corporation, will take into your consideration an Act of Assembly, passed in the year of our Lord One thousand, seven hundred and twenty seven, entitled an Act for erecting a Town in each of the counties of Spotsylvania and King George or so much of the said Act as may relate to the said Town of Fredericksburg. A due execution of said Law, your petitioners Conceive, will be productive of many real and very essential advantages to the said corporation; by encouraging the peopling of it and increasing its Trade and Navigation. Your petitioners do not wish that any immediate advantage may be taken of failures or defaults already heretofore suffered, by noncompliance with the above mentioned Act, but that Public notice may be given to the proprietors of such unimproved Lotts that a strict execution of the above mentioned Act of Assembly will be observed with all such as shall, in future, fail to perform, fulfil and comply with the rules and directions therein set forth." In consideration of the complaints of these citizens and the wise suggestions made in their communication, as well as the requirements of the act referred to, the Council ordered "that notice be given to the Proprietors of unimproved Lotts within this corporation, by advertisement in the Public News Papers, that they immediately pay up the Taxes due on said Lotts within this Town and that they be informed that they must build on their unimproved Lotts, agreeable to the Act of Assembly, passed in One thousand seven hundred and Twenty-seven, for establishing a Town in the County of Spotsylvania, otherwise the Lotts will be sold agreeble to the said Act."

      In consequence of the enforcement of this order of the Common Council, both the taxable values, and the inhabitants of the town, increased rapidly. Instead of an empty treasury, as the town then had, and the necessity it found itself under of appealing to the public for subscriptions for money with which to repair and enlarge the church, to repair the market house, the courthouse and jail, so they could be used, the town soon had money for ordinary purposes, and also for repairing the public buildings, many of which had been used during the war by the soldiers of General Washington's army, leaving a good balance in the treasury, after the work was done. Nor was that all; in 1791, under the "Domestic Loan Act" of Congress, the town loaned to the general government $3,500. This loan was evidenced by four certificates, issued by the "Loan office" of the Government in Washington and are duly recorded in the record book of the Common Council.

      METHODS OF PUNISHMENT.

      It may be interesting to note that in the olden times there were other methods resorted to for punishing criminals besides fines,

      jails and penitentiaries, which are not used in this day and time.

      The Common Council, in 1785, passed a resolution ordering Sergeant John Richards to "erect immediately a whipping post, stocks and ducking stool." The whipping post was used mainly for the slaves who were guilty of small infractions of the law, but for aggravated offences, the penalty was "thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, well laid on," to which was added "burning in the left hand, in the presence of the court." The whipping post is said to have been used for habitual persistent absence from church, but it was very seldom used for that purpose, and never in Fredericksburg so far as we have discovered from the records.

      The stocks were used to punish white persons for petty offences, such as vagrancy, trespassing and similar infractions of the law. The stocks consisted of a frame of timber, with holes in which the ankles and wrists of the offenders were confined. The stocks were erected in the public square and it is said the passers-by, and those who had gathered around them, through curiosity, would taunt and jeer at the criminals thus confined for punishment.

      The ducking stool was used for punishing common scolds, refractory women and dishonest tradesmen, especially brewers and bakers. The ducking stool for Fredericksburg was erected on the bank of the Rappahannock river, at the foot of Wolfe street, near where the old Stafford bridge spanned the river. There are several of our old citizens now living who remember when it was in use, and when it was dispensed with, nearly seventy years ago. A "ducking" always brought together a large crowd, most of whom were rude and disorderly, and jeers at and ridicule of the party "ducked" would rend the air, while the sentence of the court was being carried out. It is said that some of the "scolding women," as they would emerge from the water would send forth volumes of abuse at the disorderly crowd, while the officer waited for the next bath, and this was kept up until the order of the court was fully executed. It seemed to be the wish of the authorities that the whole population would turn out and witness these different modes of punishment, with the hope that it would deter others from committing similar offences.

       CHAPTER V.

       The Lease of the Market-House Lots — The First Serious Fire — Fredericksburg an Important Center — An Act Concerning Elections — Half of the Town Destroyed by Fire — Fredericksburg an Important Postal Point — How the Mails were Carried — A Congressional Investigation — Amendatory Act of 1821 — The Great Fire of 1822 — The Trade of the Town — Contagious Diseases — The Town in 1841 — Acts of Extension, 1851, 1852, 1858, 1861, &c.

      In the year 1789 an enactment was passed by the Legislature empowering the Mayor and Commonalty of the town of Fredericksburg to lease for three lives, or twenty-one years, such unimproved parts of the market-house lots as to them shall seem most proper, and apply the rents arising therefrom for the benefit of the corporation. In the same year an act was passed authorizing the Trustees of the Fredericksburg Academy to raise, by way of lottery, the sum of four thousand pounds to defray the expenses of erecting a building on the academy lands for the purpose of accommodating the professors and the rapidly increasing number of students. We could not learn the result of this latter scheme.

      THE FIRST SERIOUS FIRE.

      In 1799 the first serious fire the town ever had occurred. It took place in the night time and quite a number of houses were destroyed. By many persons it was supposed to have been the work of an incendiary, but others believed that it was caused by a "wooden chimney or a stove pipe, run through a window or through the side of a wooden house, without being properly protected." The Council decided to meet both views, and offered five hundred dollars for the arrest and conviction of the incendiary, and issued an emphatic condemnation against wooden chimneys and stove pipes projecting through windows or the sides of houses without having them "fire proof." This nuisance was thereby abated.

      FREDERICKSBURG СКАЧАТЬ