Colonel Lewis was an officer in the Patriot Army and commanded a division at the siege of Yorktown. He was an ardent patriot and when the Revolution started his activities ran to the manufacture of firearms, which were made at “The Gunnery” from iron wrought at the foundry, traces of which may still be seen on the Rappahannock river, just above the village of Falmouth.
Colonel Lewis was a magistrate in the town after the war, a member of the City Council and represented the county in the Legislature.
His son, Captain Robert Lewis, was one of President Washington’s private secretaries and mayor of Fredericksburg from 1821 to the day of his death. When LaFayette visited the town in 1824, Colonel Lewis was selected to deliver the address of welcome.
However, we are apt to forget the elegancies and excellencies of the courtly man whose life was dedicated to useful service in a note that is struck by the home in which he lived. Kenmore, in the light of its past, sounds an overtone of romance. We cannot escape it, and it persistently reverberates above the people it sheltered.
The Greatest Officeholder
James Monroe
James Monroe was among the most important citizens that ever lived in Fredericksburg.
Monroe was born in Westmoreland County, not far from what is now Colonial Beach. When a young man he was attracted by the larger opportunities afforded by the town and moved to Fredericksburg, where he began the practice of law, having an office in the row of old brick buildings on the west side of Charles Street, just south of Commerce. Records still in the courthouse show that he bought property on lower Princess Anne Street, which still is preserved and known as “The Home of James Monroe.” Monroe occupied the house when it was located at Bradley’s corner, and it was afterwards moved to its present site, though some contend that he lived in the house on its present site.
Shortly after his arrival he became affiliated with St. George’s Church, soon being elected a vestryman, and when he had been here the proper length of time he got into politics, and was chosen as one of the Town Councilmen. From this humble political preferment at the hands of the Fredericksburg people, he began a career that seemed ever afterward to have included nothing but officeholding. Later he became Continental Congressman from the district including Fredericksburg, and was, in turn, from that time on, Representative in the Virginia convention, Governor of Virginia, United States Congressman, Envoy Extraordinary to France, again Governor, Minister to England, Secretary of War, once more Minister to England, Minister to Madrid, Secretary of State and twice President—if not a world’s record at least one that is not often overmatched. Previous to his political career, Monroe had served in the Revolutionary Army as a Captain, having been commissioned while a resident of Fredericksburg.