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 AN IMPORTANT CENTER.
As early as 1796 Fredericksburg was an important commercial
center, and manufactories of various kinds were in operation. Iron works and mills and other industries were successfully prosecuted, and the trade of the town, in the general merchandise department, was in the hands of public-spirited, energetic merchants; and it would no doubt surprise the merchants of the present day to read the advertisements and note the extent and variety of stocks of goods kept here at that period. The growth and development of the trade was gradual and decided in all departments, the leading article being tobacco, which up to and during the War of 1812 and 1814, was increased heavily and necessitated the employment of vessels of great tonnage to carry it. And, though strange as it may appear to our present population, in those days of prosperity in manufactories, farms and workshops, and when nearly all merchandise and supplies reached our town in said vessels, large three-masted ships were moored at our wharves; and, until large cities sprang up along the coast, that diverted trade by reason of railroad transportation, our leading merchants carried on a direct trade with the West India Islands, as well as with many of the European countries. Our wharves then were a scene of busy activity and the river was crowded with vessels from all quarters of the country.
AN ACT CONCERNING ELECTIONS.