John Goolrick - Historic Fredericksburg - The Story of an Old Town

Fredericksburg sprawls at the foot of the hills where the scented summer winds sweep over it out of the valley of brawling waters above. The grass grows lush in the meadows and tangles in the hills that almost surround it. In spring the flowers streak the lowlands, climb on the slopes, and along the ridges; and Autumn makes fair colors in the trees, shading them in blood crimson, weathered bronze, and the yellow of sunsets.

Over its shadowed streets hangs the haze of history. It is not rich nor proud, because it has not sought; it is quiet and content, because it has sacrificed. It gave its energy to the Revolution. It gave its heart to the Confederacy; and, once when it was thundered at by guns, and red flames twisted in its crumbling homes, it gave its soul and all it possessed to the South. It never abated its loyalty nor cried out its sorrows.

In Fredericksburg, and on the battlefields near it, almost thirty thousand men lay on the last couch in the shadowy forests and – we think – heard Her voice calling and comforting them. To the wounded, the Old Town gave its best, not visioning the color of their uniforms, nursing them back to life: And, broken and twisted and in poverty, it began to rebuild itself and gather up the shattered ideals of its dead past.

Out of its heart has grown simple kindness; out of its soul simple faith.

As I look out over the streets, (I knew them well when Lee and Jackson and Stuart, Lincoln and Grant and Hancock knew them too), they shimmer in the Autumn sun. Over them, as has ever seemed to me, hangs an old and haunting beauty. There may not be as great men here as long ago, but here are their descendants and the descendants of others like them. And he who comes among them will find loyal hearts and warm hand-clasps.

Ah, I know the old town. My bare feet ran along its unpaved walks and passed the cabins many a time in slavery days. I knew it in the Civil War and reconstruction days, and on and on till now: And it has not failed its duty.

Fredericksburg’s history brims with achievement and adventure. It has not been tried in this volume to tell all of these. I have tried to tell a simple story, with the flame of achievement burning on the shrines and the echoes of old days sweeping through it, like low winds in the pine woods; to make men and women more vivid than dates and numbers. I have tried to be accurate and complete and to vision the past, but above all, I have loved the things of which I have written.

There is no possibility of expressing the gratitude the author feels for the aid given him by others, but he must say, briefly, that without the assistance of Miss Dora Jett, Mrs. Franklin Stearns, Mrs. John T. Goolrick, and Dr. J. N. Barney, Mr. Chester B. Goolrick and Mr. John T. Goolrick, Jr., the book could not have been made as readable as we hope the public will find it. We owe just as deep thanks to Miss Sally Gravatt of the Wallace Library.

Fredericksburg, Va. ,

October 25, 1921.

As a public speaker of wide reputation, especially on Southern themes, Hon. John T. Goolrick, Judge of the Corporation Court of Fredericksburg, Va., needs no introduction. It is my privilege to introduce him as a writer of history to an ever widening circle of readers. Other men can gather facts and put them in logical order, but few can give the history of the old town of Fredericksburg such filial sympathy and interest, such beauty of local color, as can this loyal son.

The father, Peter Goolrick, a man of fine education, came from Ireland and made his home in Fredericksburg, and was mayor of the town.

The son has always lived here. The war between the States came in his boyhood. His first connection with the Confederacy was as a messenger at the Medical Department headquarters of General Lee. Growing old enough and tiring of protected service he enlisted in Braxton’s Battery of Fredericksburg Artillery. He was wounded at Fort Harrison, but recovering, returned to his command and served to the end of the war as “a distinguished private soldier,” and surrendered with “The last eight thousand” at Appomattox. Since the war he has been prominently connected with Confederate affairs. At one time he was Commander of the local Camp of Veterans and is now on the staff of the Commander of all the Veterans of the South and Virginia.

After the war young Goolrick studied law, was elected Judge of the Corporation Court of Fredericksburg, and of the County Court of Spotsylvania, served for a time as Commonwealth’s Attorney of Fredericksburg, and later was re-elected Judge of the Corporation Court, which position he has held for sixteen years, and which he now holds. He has been the inceptor often, and always a worker, in every public event in the town.

This is not Judge Goolrick’s first appearance as a writer. He has contributed many articles to newspapers, and magazines, and has published several books. He is thus particularly fitted to write the history of his own beloved town.

Enveloped in the perfume of old English boxwood and the fragrance of still older poplars, and permeated with the charm of a two hundred and fifty year old atmosphere, the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, nestles in the soft foliage along the banks of the Rappahannock, at the point where the turbulent waters of the upper river rush abruptly against the back-wash of the sea, an odd but pleasing mixture of the old and the new.

Subtly rich with the elegance of the past, it looks proudly back across its two and a half centuries, but it has not forgotten how to live in the present, and combines delightfully all that it has of the old with much that is new and modern.

Perhaps no other community in the country has had a more intimate and constant association with the political and historic growth of America than Fredericksburg. From the earliest Colonial period, when it was a place of importance, it traces its influence on the nation’s development down through the Revolutionary war, the War of 1812, the Mexican and Civil wars and the periods of national progress between those conflicts, and even today, when the old town has lost its touch with affairs as an important community, it still can claim a close connection with events through the influence of its descendants – sons and daughters – who have gone forth in the world and achieved leadership in movements of the day that are aiding in shaping the destiny of mankind; and of these another chapter tells.

But while proud of the accomplishments of these, the old town does not depend upon them for distinction. It bases its claim to this on the events with which it actually has been associated, and the importance of the part it has played in the past is proved by data found in the recorded annals of the country.

It might, indeed, if it sought historical recognition on accepted legend rather than known fact, assert an origin that antidates that of the first English permanent colony in America. A historian, writing in the Magazine of American History, says the spot now occupied by Fredericksburg was first discovered in 1571 by Spanish Missionaries, who erected there the first Christian shrine in America. It is almost certain the town was settled in 1621, three hundred years ago, but this cannot be definitely proven, and the town has not claimed it as a date in its established history. It does not claim to have had a beginning with the recorded arrival of Captain John Smith, one year after the settlement of Jamestown, but takes as its birthdate May 2d, 1671, at which time the site was legally recognized by a grant from Sir William Berkley, then Colonial governor, to John Royston and Thomas Buckner, who are looked upon as the real founders of community life at the spot now occupied by Fredericksburg.