W h a t ’ s i n a S t e p ? The Historic Washington/Lincoln Steps

By jon gerlach

This was months before December's Battle of Fredericksburg. Of course, Lincoln had no way of knowing that the route of his carriage ride up to Marye's Heights would be followed six months later by the collective footfall of thousands of Union troops in their failed attempts to reach Marye's Heights.

When you stand on the Washington/Lincoln Steps at the museum, imagine all the people who walked here before you, and the many generations of people who will follow. After all, we tread the same paths, but in different eras.

At the corner of Princess Anne and George Streets sits the Foode Restaurant, which occupies the former National Bank Building On the George Street side of the building is a series of sandstone steps. Known as Farmer's Bank Building at the time, Lincoln stopped here on May 23rd to visit with U.S. General Marsena Patrick, and very likely stood on these steps. The steps provided access to a residence upstairs, and Patrick's temporary quarters. After the President's visit, Patrick escorted Lincoln around, probably up Hanover Street, along Sunken Road and through the Union camps on Marye's Heights overlooking Fredericksburg.

There's another thing Lincoln didn't know that day: the steps at Farmer's Bank were already on their way to becoming a milepost in the arc of local history. Local resident and slave John Washington had been living in the second floor of the Farmer's Bank building. It was on Good Friday, five weeks before Lincoln's visit - on the very day the Union arrived at Fredericksburg - that John Washington left home, walked down these steps for the last time and made his way across the Rappahannock River to freedom on the Union side. For more on John Washington's trek to freedom, check out "What's in a Journey?" in the May 2022 issue of Front Porch Fredericksburg magazine.

Today, the Washington/Lincoln Steps can be seen at their new location, next to the Fredericksburg Area Museum They were gifted to the museum by Jon Properties and Foode Restaurant. After removal, highly accurate replacement steps were installed at the original location. Mike Adams of Jon Properties explains how the new steps were made. First, a high-resolution 3D laser image was created from the original steps. The topographic data from this image was used to fabricate new steps that exactly follow the shapes and contours of the original steps, resulting in as-near an exact duplicate as possible.

So … what's in a Step? Here … an enduring connection to people across time.

An attorney and retired archaeologist, Jon Gerlach serves on Fredericksburg's City Council, Ward Two.

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