Kenmore Plantation

A Georgian mansion built in 1775 for Fielding Lewis and his wife Betty, sister of George Washington. The house is known for its ornate plasterwork ceilings and Revolutionary War history.

Completed in 1775, Kenmore stands as one of America's finest Georgian mansions, built by Colonel Fielding Lewis for his wife Betty Washington Lewis—the only sister of George Washington. The cognoscenti of American colonial architecture consider its ornate plasterwork ceilings, crafted by an unknown "Stucco Man" who also decorated Mount Vernon's dining room, among the grandest in the nation. But this elegant brick mansion on Washington Avenue harbors spirits from two of America's bloodiest conflicts.

Fielding Lewis was a prosperous Fredericksburg merchant, justice of the peace, and member of the House of Burgesses who surveyed 861 acres with his brother-in-law George Washington in 1752. When revolution came, Lewis became an ardent patriot, appointed in 1775 to establish the Fredericksburg Gun Manufactory to supply weapons for Washington's Continental Army. When necessary funds could not be secured from the struggling government, Lewis advanced seven thousand pounds from his personal fortune—money he would never recover. He and Betty ultimately borrowed between thirty and forty thousand pounds to provide saltpeter, sulfur, gunpowder, and lead for ammunition.

The sacrifice destroyed him. Plagued by tuberculosis throughout the war, Lewis watched his health and fortune deteriorate together. On December 7, 1781—just six weeks after the British surrender at Yorktown that secured American independence—Fielding Lewis succumbed to consumption at age fifty-six, virtually bankrupt. The Commonwealth of Virginia still owed the Lewises some seven thousand pounds when he died, a debt they never repaid. Betty spent her remaining years struggling financially, sometimes hiring out enslaved workers to supplement her income.

It is said that Fielding Lewis never stopped worrying about those debts. From the 1920s until restoration work began in 2001, his presence was felt most strongly in the master bedroom on the first floor. Staff repeatedly found fireplace tools in disarray, as though someone had been poking at and stoking a fire. Heavy footsteps paced back and forth when no one was present. An apparition dressed in Revolutionary-era clothing was observed sitting at his desk, intensely studying papers with a sour expression—still going over his ruinous accounts more than two centuries after his death. Doorknobs turn by themselves. Cold breezes sweep through rooms even during the humid Virginia summers. Napkins carefully set in the dining room are found mysteriously tossed about.

The Civil War brought fresh trauma to Kenmore's grounds. In December 1862, Federal forces crossed the Rappahannock on their march to Richmond, but found the road blocked by General Robert E. Lee's well-fortified Army of Northern Virginia. During the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, there were over 17,000 casualties—half of them falling wounded or dead within sight of Kenmore. At least eleven cannonballs struck the mansion, destroying the kitchen and laundry buildings. One round crashed through the roof and lodged beneath an upstairs floor; another damaged the famous plasterwork ceiling in the Drawing Room. A Borman-fuzed common shell discovered during 1989 restoration work had failed to detonate—a live Civil War explosive hidden for over a century.

In May 1864, after the Battle of the Wilderness, Kenmore became a Union field hospital. Officer Amos Rood of the 7th Wisconsin Infantry described the scene: the city was overwhelmed, "every house, barn, shop, factory, shed: all overcrowded and thousands laying on the sidewalks and gardens and fields." Rood, suffering an infected leg wound, was given "grog and put to sleep with opium pills"—the only treatment available amid the chaos. The mansion's dining room, with its exquisite Rococo plasterwork, likely served as the surgery; all its original floorboards were replaced after the war. War-era graffiti in the attic confirms wounded soldiers occupied every available space.

Over one hundred Union soldiers who died at Kenmore were buried in hastily dug shallow graves across the grounds. Bodies continued surfacing into the twentieth century—a soldier's remains discovered in December 1929 during kitchen construction received full military honors at Fredericksburg National Cemetery. Another was found in 1935. This horrific chapter, as author L.B. Taylor Jr. wrote in "The Ghosts of Fredericksburg and Nearby Environs," keeps the spirits of young soldiers trapped in an endless loop of their untimely demises.

Late-night visitors to Kenmore have reported putting their ears to the front door around 2 AM and hearing small footsteps running inside the empty house. Others walking the grounds have heard voices whispering behind them, only to turn and find no one there. The University of Mary Washington's annual Ghost Walk, inspired by Taylor's book, includes Kenmore among its dozen haunted stops, where students act out the mansion's supernatural tales.

Today, Kenmore is a National Historic Landmark celebrating its 250th anniversary. The Bissell Gallery exhibits artifacts from the collection, including displays on the house's history, restoration, and the Marquis de Lafayette's connections to the Washington and Lewis families. Modern cannon balls mounted on the exterior mark where artillery struck during the Civil War. But as visitors tour the Georgian halls, they may sense what staff have long known: Fielding Lewis never left his beloved home. Two and a half centuries later, the patriot who sacrificed everything for American independence remains at his desk, still poring over papers, still worrying about debts that can never be repaid.