The History of the City of Fredericksburg, Virginia. S. J. Quinn
only case then, and to this day there has been no other, Fredericksburg having enjoyed singular and perfect immunity from epidemics of all kinds.
THE TOWN IN THE YEAR 1841.
In describing the town in 1841, an intelligent visitor says “Fredericksburg is regularly laid out and compactly built; many of its buildings are brick. The principal public buildings are a courthouse, clerk’s office, a jail, a market-house, an orphan asylum, one Episcopal, one Presbyterian, one Methodist, one Baptist and one Reform Baptist church. The town also contains two banks and one male and one female seminary of the higher class. It is supplied with water from the river[24] by subterraneous pipes and is governed by a Mayor and Common Council. A canal, extending from the town to Fox’s mill, a point on the Rappahannock, thirty-five miles above, has been commenced and partly completed.
“Fredericksburg enjoys considerable trade, chiefly in grain, flour, tobacco, maize, etc., and considerable quantities of gold are exported. Its exports have been computed at over four millions of dollars annually. The falls of the Rappahannock, in the vicinity, afford good water power. There were in 1840, by the United States statistics, seventy-three stores, with a capital of $376,961; two tanneries, paints, drugs, etc., with a capital of $37,000; one grist mill, two printing offices, four semi-weekly newspapers; capital in manufactures, $141,200; five academies, with 256 students, and seven schools, with 156 scholars. The population in 1830, whites, 1,797; slaves, 1,124; free blacks, 387—total, 3,308. The population in 1840 was 3,974.”
But the commercial prosperity of the town even in 1840 was not equal to its advantages, but it steadily grew and prospered during the next decade. The completion of a canal, extending from the town to a point on the Rappahannock river, a distance of forty miles, railroad facilities and river navigation by sail vessels and steamboats, greatly enlarged her commercial advantages and increased her export trade, and the beginning of the year 1850 found her enjoying a degree of material prosperity, presaging a glorious commercial future. Commencing the year 1850 under circumstances so encouraging, the next decade was expected to exceed in all departments of trade the preceding one.
The failure to build a railroad through the section of country from which the bulk of our trade was drawn, and the substitution therefor of a plank road, with the building of the Orange and Alexandria railroad, now the Western, and the advance of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad along the upper line of the Shenandoah Valley, greatly injured the trade of Fredericksburg by diverting from her a large amount of produce, which was formerly brought to town in wagons, and while in 1860 the population had somewhat increased, the general trade of the town was diminished.
THE CORPORATE LIMITS EXTENDED.
In the year 1851 the Legislature passed a bill extending the limits of the town, in accordance with a plan made by Commissioners appointed by the Common Council. That extension embraced the territory we now have within the corporate limits except a portion of the Water Power Company, the survey having been made by Mr. William Slaughter, City Surveyor, in 1850, and reported to the Council by Joseph Sanford, John Minor and John Pritchard, who were appointed a committee by the Council to “enquire into the expediency of extending the limits of the said town.” After making a thorough examination, this committee reported back to the body that it was both expedient and desirable that the extension should be made, which report and recommendation were adopted. To carry out this action, the Council appointed Hugh S. Scott, Wm. S. Barton, John James Chew, Joseph Sanford and John Pritchard, and they were instructed and empowered as a Commission, under the provisions of the act of the Legislature, to locate and lay out such streets in the part of the town annexed by the provisions of the bill, as they might think proper, and report back to the Council, with a full plan of their work. But it was provided that none of the new streets reported upon were to be opened unless the Council should decide it necessary, and in that event, if the owners of the lots did not relinquish their claims to the town, damages were to be paid by the Council in such sums as should be ascertained by three disinterested freeholders of Spotsylvania county, who should be appointed by the county court of said county for that purpose. The Commission performed the duties assigned them by the Council, and laid out the new portion of the town into streets, giving a name to each, but many of them were never opened, as they were not needed, and remain closed to this day.
The same act made it unnecessary for either the Mayor or Recorder of the town to be present and preside over the hustings court, but made it lawful for any three Justices of the Corporation to hold the court, except, as in the former act, where parties were to be examined or tried for felonies it required that five Justices should be present and preside. In consequence of this provision the court would convene with five Justices when felony cases were to be considered, and after they were disposed of, two of them would be excused and the other three would continue the session until the business of the court was completed. These Justices were appointed by the Governor, on the recommendation of the hustings court, and were among the best citizens and most successful businessmen of the town, and what they lacked in a knowledge of the law, it is generally agreed they more than made up in good common sense and unyielding integrity.
In the following year, 1852, the Legislature passed another amendment to the charter of the town, extending its limits, but this amendment was only made necessary to correct an error in the section of the act of the year before, extending the corporate limits. The metes and bounds were left the same as prescribed in the act of 1851.
In 1858 an act was passed by the Legislature enabling the Council to sell real estate for delinquent taxes due the town. It authorized the authorities to sell all real estate within the corporation returned delinquent for the non-payment of taxes and interest, and to make such regulations for affecting the sale and collecting the taxes as they might deem expedient. In case the sale was not made and the taxes remained unpaid, the taxes became a lien on the property and ten per centum was charged thereon until they were paid. The act also provided that if the taxes due on real estate were paid by the tenant, who was not the owner of the property, the amount might be deducted from the rents of the same in settlement with the owner. In cases where the property was owned by non-residents, and was vacant or unimproved, and no levy could be made to satisfy the taxes, the town was authorized to take summary proceedings before any court in the State, on ten days’ notice to the parties owning the delinquent property.
In 1861 another act was passed by the Legislature, extending the corporate limits of the town. This was done in order to bring certain property within the limits of the town for the purpose of city taxation, according to a previous agreement with the owners of the Fredericksburg Water Power. That agreement was that all mills and manufactories, using the water of that company for power, erected after the completion of the canal, should be liable for, and should pay, city taxes. The extension by this act is described as follows:
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