Dr. Mortimer was the first Mayor of Fredericksburg. His remains are buried near the center of Hurkamp Park, which was for nearly a century a public burying ground. As has been said, he was Mary Washington’s physician, but not the only one at her late illness, for it is quite certain that Dr. Elisha Hall, who was the grandfather of Dr. Horace B. Hall, and who lived on the lot now occupied by Dr. J. E. Tompkin’s residence, was also one of her physicians in her last days. This is shown beyond a doubt by a letter, still preserved from Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, to Dr. Elisha Hall, his cousin, written July 6, 1789, a short time before Mrs. Washington’s death. Dr. Hall had written to him for his experience and advice for cancer treatment and received the following:
“The respectable age and character of your venerable patient lead me to regret that it is not in my power to suggest a remedy for the cure of the disorder you have described in her breast. I know nothing of the root you mention, found in Carolina and Georgia, but, from a variety of inquiries and experiments, I am disposed to believe that there does not exist in the vegetable kingdom an antidote to cancers. All the supposed vegetable remedies I have heard of are compounds of some mineral caustics. The arsenic is the most powerful of any of them. It is the basis of Dr. Martin’s powder. I have used it in many cases with success, but have failed in some. From your account of Mrs. Washington’s breast I am afraid no great good can be expected from the use of it. Perhaps it may cleanse it, and thereby retard its spreading. You may try it diluted in water. Continue the application of opium and camphor, and wash it frequently with a decoction of red clover. Give anodynes, when necessary, and support the system with bark and wine. Under this treatment she may live comfortably many years, and finally die of old age.”
The Dam of the Water Power Co., the Canal emerging
from left corner furnishes power for town.
(See [page 329])
“Meditation Rock,” Mary Washington’s favorite retreat for reading, prayer and meditation.
(See [page 157])
The house on the south corner of Prince Edward and Fauquier streets, purchased in 1898 by Mrs. Bernice Hart, tradition says, was for over one hundred years the clerk’s office, and the court records of the trustees of the town were kept there. There may have been a court held in that small place under the Colonial charter of the town, but not a criminal court since that time, as the records show to the contrary. The records of courts held here before the War of the Revolution—if any were held here—and the record of proceedings of the trustees cannot be found at present. The house was a small, one and a half story frame building, similar in architecture to the old part of the Mary Washington House. The additions made to it in recent years have completely destroyed its original form and architecture and have given it a modern appearance. No one, of course, knows when it was built, but, judging from its style and the material of which it was constructed, it must take its place with the oldest of our ancient buildings.
“Federal Hill,” on Hanover street, owned and occupied by Mrs. H. Theodore Wight, was, in the latter part of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries, the home of Thomas Reade Rootes, who was one of the most distinguished lawyers of his day. His third daughter was Sarah Robinson, who married Colonel John A. Cobb, of North Carolina, a son of Howell Cobb, of Virginia. Soon after his marriage Colonel Cobb settled in Georgia, where were born those two distinguished lawyers and soldiers, Howell and Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb. The latter was killed in front of the Stevens House, at the foot of Marye’s Heights, on the 13th of December, 1862, it is claimed, by a shell, which was said to have been thrown from a gun stationed at Federal Hill, where his mother was born and married. A recent writer in a Northern journal, however, claims that General Cobb was killed by a shell thrown from the Stafford side of the river. But both accounts differ from the report of General Kershaw, who took command of the line when General Cobb was wounded. In his report of the battle he says General Cobb was killed by a sharp-shooter stationed in one of the houses to his left on Hanover street.[58] As General Kershaw was on the ground a few minutes after General Cobb was wounded, and saw and talked with him after he was wounded, his version is more than likely the correct one. No one knows when or by whom Federal Hill was built. At one time the property belonged to a gentleman by the name of Lovell, who moved to Fauquier county, and it may be he erected the residence.
The old, one and a half story frame building on the corner of Prince Edward and Fauquier streets, now owned and occupied by Mrs. Mary Knox Moncure, takes its place among the oldest buildings of the town. It was the birth-place and home of John Forsythe, who made such a brilliant record as a Statesman from Georgia, to which State he moved while a young man. His father was Robert Forsythe, a major in the Revolutionary war, who died in Fredericksburg early in the nineteenth century.
This house was also said to have been the home of John Dawson, an old bachelor, who represented this district in Congress from 1797 to 1814. His success at the ballot-box was due as much, perhaps, if not more, to his declaring himself a friend to the poor man (a hobby much ridden these days by politicians) than to any other one thing. He is said to have created quite a sensation in the courthouse in Fredericksburg during one of his heated campaigns, which gained him many votes. Political feeling ran high, the people were much stirred up, the canvas was exciting and the result doubtful. A public meeting had been extensively advertised to take place at the courthouse, and the building was early filled to its capacity to hear a joint discussion between the Congressional candidates. Mr. Dawson, a few minutes late, reached the courthouse, and, finding his way blocked by the dense crowd, shouted at the top of his voice from the door—“Make way, gentlemen, for the poor man’s friend!” All eyes were at once turned to the speaker, and, seeing it was John Dawson, the candidate, the crowd parted and he was escorted through to the stand, amid thundering applause. It is needless to say he was reëlected to Congress.