Chatham Manor, Fredericksburg, VA: I

I have studied the Fitzhugh slaves for years.

I have followed, tracked, recorded and accounted for over 600 individuals who at one time or another were enslaved by this large family. I have recorded thousands of pieces of data on them, I have reconstructed their families, I have followed them across the country and back through time. Part of me knows those people.

So, finally getting to see Chatham was a bit of an emotional experience for me. So much had happened there. So many people born there, died there, served there...

I had heard many good things about the current NPS staff and their work at Chatham. But, the volunteers knew their stuff! They talked enthusiastically & appropriately about slavery at Chatham. And, they wanted to know more. They wanted to solve it's mystery at their site.

I look forward to their findings.
























































A tiny visitor:







Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

Chatham Manor, Fredericksburg, VA: II

Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

Chatham Manor, Fredericksburg, VA: III

Civil War soldier's burial:





























Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

Chatham Manor's Catalpa Witness Trees, Fredericksburg,VA

Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database

Historic Outbuilding, Belmont, Fredericksburg, VA

BELMONT - The Gari Melchers Estate & Memorial Gallery

This historic structure is located to the NE of the Belmont mansion house.

During my visit, a Belmont guide told me that this structure had at one time been occupied by an elderly African American woman who had worked for the Melchers.

My questions are:

1. Who was the elderly African American woman?
2. Where was she from?
3. Had she ever been enslaved? (or was she the descendant of a slave?)
4. What were her (or her family's) ties to Belmont and the surrounding community, if any?
5. This was a tenant house, but was it previously a slave quarter?
6. Were there more like this at that location or was this the only one? (My quarters to community theory.)
7. What is Belmont going to do with it?

This may be a fantastic opportunity to interpret historic African American lifeways.
























Looking SW, one can almost see the Belmont mansion house from the structure:


Maddy McCoy
Fairfax County, Virginia
Slavery Inventory Database