In 1772, Colonel George Washington moved his mother, Mary Ball Washington, from her plantation home at Ferry Farm in Stafford County to a house he purchased at Lewis and Charles streets in Fredericksburg, in a bit of eighteenth-century “downsizing.” An avid gardener who was long used to country life, Mary Washington attempted to recreate her Ferry Farm gardens in a smaller version in this new location, adjacent to her married daughter’s home at Kenmore.
This last home of Washington’s revered mother was occupied by a number of owners for the one hundred years following her death in 1789 until an attempt to acquire and move the property to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1890 spurred the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) to secure the permanent preservation of the house and grounds. The newly formed Mary Washington Branch of the APVA took responsibility for the home, and it was this group that approached The Garden Club of Virginia in the mid-1960s to seek support for the restoration of the gardens there. source
Visiting hours:
Sunday 12–4PM
Monday 12–4PM
Tuesday Closed
Wednesday Closed
Thursday Closed
Friday 12–4PM
Saturday 12–4PM
Location
1300 Charles Street
Fredericksburg, Virginia 22401