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Washington Heritage Museums is a participant in the nation-wide Museums For All program. Guests who present their SNAP or EBT card as well as photo ID, receive free admission to the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop, the Mary Washington House, and the Rising Sun Tavern.
Mary Washington House
1200 Charles St, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
(540) 373-1569
HOURS
Sunday – 12 pm - 4 pm
Monday – 10 am - 4 pm
Tuesday – 10 am - 4 pm
Wednesday – Saturday 10 am - 4 pm
The Museum Store is generally open at the same hours as the museum. If visiting the Museum Store only, you may wish to call 540-373-1569 to confirm that it is open. Admission to the Museum Store is always free of charge.
PROPERTY HISTORY
ca. 1772 In 1772, George Washington purchased a house from Michael Robinson in Fredericksburg, Virginia for his mother. Mary Ball Washington spent her last seventeen years in this comfortable home.
The white frame house sits on the corner of Charles and Lewis Streets and was in walking distance to Kenmore, home of Mary's daughter Betty Washington Lewis. Tradition has it that, during the Revolution, General Lafayette came by the home seeking a visit with Mrs. Washington and found her working in her garden. The President-to-be came to this home to receive his mother's blessing before attending his inauguration in 1789.
In 1890, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, later named Preservation Virginia acquired the Mary Washington House and saved it from certain destruction. The house was slated to be disassembled for travel to the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition and reassembled there for display. The organization opened the house to the public in 1900. The house later underwent an extensive restoration and was reopened to the public in 1931.
Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop
1020 Caroline St, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
(540) 373-3362
HOURS
Sunday – 12 pm - 4 pm
Monday – 10 am - 4 pm
Tuesday – 10 am - 4 pm
Wednesday – Saturday 10 am - 4 pm
PROPERTY HISTORY
ca. 1772 This eighteenth-century building was restored to house the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop, a museum of medicine, pharmacy, and military and political affairs. Dr. Mercer served the citizens of Fredericksburg with medicines and treatments of the time. Leeches, lancets, snakeroot, and crab claws made up just some of the remedies. Dr. Mercer practiced medicine for fifteen years in Fredericksburg. His patients included Mary Washington. Dr. Mercer left his practice to join the Revolutionary army and died as a Brigadier General at the Battle of Princeton.
Rising Sun Tavern
1304 Caroline St, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
(540) 371-1494
HOURS
Sunday – 12 pm - 4 pm
Monday – 10 am - 4 pm
Tuesday – 10 am - 4 pm
Wednesday – Saturday 10 am - 4 pm
PROPERTY HISTORY
ca. 1760 Built by George Washington’s youngest brother Charles around 1760 as his home, this frame building became a tavern in 1792 when it was purchased by the Wallace family. It operated for 35 years as a stopover for travelers in the bustling port town of Fredericksburg.
Preservation Virginia acquired the Rising Sun Tavern in 1907 and completed a series of restorations including the front porch. Much of the beautiful woodwork in the tavern is original.
St James' House
1300 Charles St, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
(540) 373-5630
HOURS
St. James’ House is open for public tours during Historic Garden Week in Virginia and the first week in October.
PROPERTY HISTORY
ca. 1760's The St. James' House was built around 1768 and is one of the few eighteenth-century frame houses still standing in Fredericksburg. The house was originally home to James Mercer, an attorney, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, first judge of the General Court in Fredericksburg, and the attorney who drew up the will for Mary Washington. Mercer built the house on land once owned by Fielding Lewis, brother-in-law of George Washington.
The house is particularly noted for the collection of antique furniture and decorative arts assembled by Daniel Breslin and William Tolerton, who restored St. James' in the mid-1960's and bequeathed it, along with an endowment for its perpetual care, to Preservation Virginia.
Mary Washington Monument Site
1500 Washington Ave, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
(540) 373-5630
ADMISSION FREE
HOURS
Mary Washington Monument Site is open from sunrise to sunset.
PROPERTY HISTORY
ca. 1894 The monument to Mary Washington, mother of George Washington, was dedicated on May 10, 1894, more than a century after her death.
In 1789 Mary’s daughter, Betty Lewis, had her buried on property she and her late husband, Fielding Lewis, owned. Though the exact location of her grave is unknown, it is reported to be near the sandstone outcropping known as Meditation Rock. This was a place well known to Mary, and somewhere she would have visited for solace and prayer.
In the 1830s, construction of a previous monument began. That monument was never completed, and by the late 1800s, it was unsalvageable. It was not until the property was advertised for sale in 1889 that people came together to fundraise for a new monument.
Also on the property are a Caretaker’s Cottage, the Gordon Family Cemetery, and the Eskridge Oak.