The most efficient form of transportation available to American colonists was waterborne. As settlers pushed inland from the coast, they naturally followed the rivers. Just as naturally, when the rivers began unnavigable, towns were established to serve as centers of commerce and transportation linking interior farms and settlements to the outside world.
Thus Fredericksburg was laid out in 1728, just downstream from the falls of the Rappahannock River. Like many other Virginia towns, the site had previously served as an Indian village.
Situated adjacent to the Northern Neck, home of the Lees and Washingtons, Fredericksburg hosted many of the leading names of the day. George Washington spent his early years in the town and his mother later lived there in a house bought by her son. Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, and James Monroe were also familiar faces.
Although the Potomac is the northern boundary of Virginia, it was the Rapphannock that became the military border for the four years of the Civil War. As successive Union armies tried to enforce their cries of "On to Richmond!", Frederickburg became the natural place for General Lee to thwart them. First in December of 1862 as Federal troops fought through the streets of Frederickburg to be repulsed at Marye's Heights, to Lee's great victory at Chancellorsville that launched the Gettysburg campaign, to the rapid maneuvering in the the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House that stymied Grant; Fredericksburg saw the worst of the war.
The town of Frederickburg survived the War, but fell victim to the urban decay that afflicted many urban areas this century as people used their cars to flee the suburbs. The last two decades though have seen a great revitalization of the downtown as businesses and individuals rescued and restored the historic buildings and created a popular and appealing commercial and tourist district.
