Charles Dick continued as a close friend of the Lewis and Washington families, and the dates of some of the letters exchanged between George and his mother coincide with Dick's visits to the west on commissary business.

Local Involvement

Though there was no fighting this far east, there was plenty of troop activity. Fredericksburg was a busy assembly point in 1754 for both men and provisions. Many of the recruits were vagrants.

In the spring of 1756, 25 eastern counties, when ordered by the Assembly to supply more troops, emptied their jails and marched the draftees to Fredericksburg under guard.  Local militia units were also called up. Charles Lewis, Fielding's younger brother, chronicled the one-month tour of duty of the Spotsylvania militia. Although they saw no combat, his diary is nevertheless a fascinating if hair raising account of military and civilian life on the frontier.  (A transcription is on file at the Virginiana Room of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library.)

For the most part, local matters were unaffected by events to the west. The population was increasing, with convict servants continuing to be used as cheap labor by both the artisans and the merchants. A few members of the gentry now lived in town. And the Scotsmen on both sides of the river were creating a society of their own. The merchants who were beginning to be appointed as justices on the court were accorded the rank of “Gentleman.” Social barriers were beginning to ease.

The Masons Across the river, the village of Falmouth was now controlled by Scotsmen who became the trustees of the town. Founded at the instigation of Robert “King” Carter, the agent for Lord Fairfax, who owned all of the Northern Neck, Falmouth received little oversight once the interest of Carter’s sons and sons-in-law lapsed after his death. A visitor counted only 19 buildings in 1759. Falmouth became a mercantile base for Scottish merchants, who launched a very large trade with the settlers west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was the combined assemblage of affluent Scottish merchants on both sides of the river who initiated a Masonic Lodge as early as 1752. There were also a few Scottish political refugees, perhaps escaping retribution after the uprising to put Bonnie Prince Charlie (a Stewart) on the throne of England was squelched by the Hanovers. The impetus for the Lodge seems to have come from the Falmouth merchants. But from the first, the activities were based in Fredericksburg’s upper neighborhood. The first social activities, and perhaps the meetings as well, took place in a tavern run by the widow Barbara Jones.  (Her husband, who died in 1752, has the oldest gravestone now standing in St. George's cemetery.)

In 1753, Mrs. Jones was reimbursed by the Masons for 13 broken glasses. By that time, the local gentry had also quickly joined—Fielding Lewis, Charles Dick, and young George Washington, among others. The tavern was small (Hugh Mercer later rented it for his apothecary shop) but attractively furnished and could accommodate overnight guests. There were two large and four small tables, 14 pewter dishes, some silver spoons, and china cups and bowls. A servant (Kate) waited on the guests. It was a very respectable spot for a meeting of the new Masonic society and socializing afterward. After Jones’ death, the Masons moved across the street to the coffee house of Charles Julian, Mrs.Jones’ son-in-law; and then about 1757, it was probably they who began raising funds for a townhouse on the public lot, no doubt with permission of the town trustees. (George Washington contributed £5 on a visit in January 1758.)

The Disastrous Career of Benjamin Grymes

John Allan proved to be a capable manager of the inspection station. Unfortunately, he died in 1750.  The justices were not so fortunate with the next owner.  Benjamin Grymes, who bought the warehouses from Allan’s estate in 1751, was the justices’ nemesis, and a problem to everyone else.

Grymes, who was the same age as Fielding Lewis and arrived in the county about the same time, was everything that Lewis was not. He was an irascible and volatile spendthrift.
 
Unfortunately Grymes also happened to outrank Lewis on the court because of his family’s prestigious credentials. Finally, in 1769, Grymes was arbitrarily ousted by the governor from the Spotsylvania court “to restore peace and harmony to that county.” This effectively removed him from power during the crucial 1770s.  Posterity owes a silent vote of thanks to the other justices who contrived to clear the path for Fielding Lewis and Charles Dick.

In the meantime, Grymes had two decades to wreak all kinds of damage. He was constantly feuding with the other justices, engaging in lawsuits, and protesting assaults on his dignity. Nevertheless, he managed to get elected as one of Spotsylvania’s representatives in the House of Burgesses by playing to the southern county voters as the anti-town candidate.

In his two terms as burgess, he was usually ineffectual and often absent. Those were his better moments. While he owned the tobacco warehouses and wharf, he neglected their upkeep. There were few instructions issued to him by the court, however, probably because the inspectors were grateful to be spared his presence.

He built a very large townhouse on the front of his property bordering Caroline Street, the “land adjoining” lots 9 and 10 (where the warehouses stood). The drawing room was an enormous 40 x 20 feet. When the town was expanded in 1759, his house stood in the path of a new street (Wolfe), but the Assembly passed special legislation to protect it.

In 1755, Grymes mortgaged all of his properties for £3000 and borrowed heavily from Presley Thornton and from his brother-in-law, William Fitzhugh (the brother of his deceased first wife), to set himself up as a tobacco trader.  He continued to pile debt upon debt, ruining his bondsman and financially endangering Fitzhugh, who now resided at Chatham and was fair game for lawsuits by the Scottish merchants.

Benjamin Grymes finally lost all in 1771 at the auction block - his county lands, town property, slaves, a brig and a schooner, all his household furnishings, even his books.  In 1773, his wife, Priscilla, sued in Spotsylvania court for separate maintenance and protection from her husband. (The presiding judge was Fielding Lewis.)

Undaunted by his multiple disgraces (not all of which have been recounted here), Benjamin Grymes ran his thoroughbred “Miss Spot” in the Jockey Club race in 1774 against the other members of the gentry. He died in 1776.  Grymes’  house became a prominent tavern and stood for over half a century blocking Wolfe Street.

Important Changes in the Offing

Portrait of Betty Washington Lewis, painted by John Wollaston between 1755 and 1757, hangs at her home, now called Kenmore Plantation, on Washington Avenue.

Betty Washington Joins the Lewis Household In May 1750, at the age of seventeen, Betty Washington married Fielding Lewis, three months after the death of his first wife, her cousin Catharine Washington. Early remarriage was almost a necessity to keep a large colonial household running smoothly. Their home was the center of a network of family and friends - Washingtons, Willises, Dicks, Mercers, and Thorntons. At the time this portrait was painted, Betty was in her very early twenties, with a stepson and daughter (who were also her cousins). By the end of 1757, she had borne four sons of her own and buried two of them. A daughter Mary was born in 1759 and died in infancy.  Betty Lewis had in all eleven children. The six who survived to adulthood were Fielding Jr., George, Betty, Lawrence, Robert, and Howell.

At the beginning of the decade, few would have predicted that there would be such major change in store for Fredericksburg.  Two property transactions set the stage. At the south end of town, Roger Dixon, a gentleman from Gloucester County and a cousin of the Lewises, caught a bad case of real estate fever and bought 330 acres in January 1752.  He immediately announced the sale of lots adjoining the lower end of town, but nothing came of it.

Around the upper end of town in the same year,  Fielding Lewis, with his father's blessing, bought the other half of the land patent (grant) on which the Willis family resided. George Washington, just turned twenty but already a licensed surveyor, surveyed the 861 acres for his brother-in-law. He made field notes but drew no plat.

Lewis land now surrounded the upper half of the town. And the Willis and Dixon land surrounded the lower half. As it happened, all three families were cousins stemming from their Gloucester County roots.

Fielding Lewis grew wheat and built his first mill in 1752, at the fork of Hazel Run and today’s Smith Run, now covered over by the Blue Gray Parkway. The death of Col. John Lewis in 1754 prompted Fielding to branch out in new directions. He now owned his father's business and also his land, which made a plantation exceeding 1,200 acres.  Lewis began selling small parcels around the edge of town. In 1755, he extended Caroline Street and created a block of four lots beyond the upper town line, which included his father’s business lots.  Some time after 1757, he created Lewis Street, only 36 feet wide, which he also conveyed to the town.  But Lewis and Dixon had more grandiose plans in mind. At the end of the decade, they managed, through legislation enacted by the Assembly, to quadruple the size of Fredericksburg.