History Blog

On Tuesday, January 26, 2010, the University of Mary Washington invites the public to a free lecture on Thomas Jefferson.

The new 17-acre park, located in northern Stafford County near Aquia Harbor, will become part of the county's own park system when it opens next year. Government Island is historically significant as the source of Aquia sandstone, used in such structures as the White House, the U.S. Capitol, Aquia Church, Gunston Hall, Kenmore, and Christ Church in Alexandria. In 2002, the House passed a resolution recognizing the historical significance of Aquia sandstone quarries on Government Island.

One hundred and forty-seven years ago, lines of blue advanced on a hillside near the outskirts of Fredericksburg. Those heights were manned by gray-uniformed soldiers, powerfully well-armed and rather surprised that the Union commander should send wave after wave of troops into their maelstrom of cannon and rifle fire. What followed was a slaughter about which Confederate General Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible...we should grow too fond of it."

In 1873, a steamboat loaded with passengers, livestock and produce caught fire and sank on the Potomac River near Aquia Creek. Traveling from Washington, the overloaded vessel carried three times more people than allowed by its license, and the engulfing flames and churning waters claimed 76 passengers, most of them women and children. A new book, Disaster on the Potomac: The Last Run of the Steamboat Wawaset, by Alvin Oickle, gives the details of that terrible day.

Want to learn more?

The Pilgrims get the fame for their feast in New England, but two years prior on December 4, 1619, thirty-eight Virginians at Berkeley Hundred celebrated “a day of thanksgiving’ to God as required by their charter:

Our libraries will be closed on Thanksgiving and the day after, so now's the time to pick up some reading to take you through the holiday. We have many cookbooks to help plan the feast, but of our other collections these three books tell stories especially true to life and true to the heart to help make your holiday a warm one.

 The mysterious powers-that-be have shipped over a few more boxes of that remarkable new book Wealthy in Heart: [An] Oral History of Life Before Fort. A. P. Hill. Those books will be distributed FREE, on a first come-first-served basis, until the boxes are emptied.

Civil War - Fredericksburg: Then & Now was released October 28. This new DVD is a cooperative production of the Civil War Round Table of Fredericksburg and the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust.

Come to the Headquarters Library theater onThursday, November 5, 7-9 pm, to view parts of the DVD, and meet with the producers, director, and narrator who will be available for questions.