The spruced-up Market Square sits at the rear of the Fredericksburg Area Museum off Princess Anne Street downtown. mwm View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

SQUARE: City's market restoration completed

Fredericksburg's Market Square reopens Saturday for its first public event in seven years

By ELIZABETH PEZZULLO

Date published: 5/9/2003

WHEN FREDERICKSBURG Area Museum and Cultural Center officials decided Market Square would be restored, no one entertained visions of old.

Back in the 1700s, sides of beef hung from thick hooks in the open-air market. Fishmongers displayed their smelly stock, and farmers sold fruits and vegetables.

Instead, all agreed the site would be "adaptively reused."

"We decided it wasn't going to be returned to a market square but become more of an urban park," said Ed Watson, director of the Fredericksburg-area museum. "We wanted it to be a place where people could congregate."

Tomorrow, the refurbished Market Square--tucked behind the museum on Princess Anne Street--will open for the first time in seven years as part of the commemoration of the 275th anniversary of Fredericksburg's founding.

The daylong Market Square Faire will chronicle periods of the city's history: the Colonial era, Civil War, and the early 1900s, as well as the 1950s and '60s. Activities will include a children's play, dancing and a musical opera clown.

Getting to this point was no easy feat. For the past two years, the city--which owns Market Square--and museum officials collaborated on the project, which involved re-laying Belgian block stones, planting eight little-leaf linden trees, and conducting a massive archaeological dig that transformed the square into a huge sandbox for months.

"Everybody worked really hard on this," Watson said. "I'm very happy with the way it turned out. The crew down there was truly outstanding. I couldn't be more pleased and I'm very happy it's done."

The completed square, most recently used as a downtown parking lot, is laid out in a grid pattern, dotted by the trees.

A brick staircase and pavilion hug the rear of the museum.

The museum received a $500,000 federal enhancement grant for the project, and the city threw in another $120,000, Watson said.

Undoubtedly, the most exciting find during the excavation were the remains of three men, two women and a teenage boy.

Mary Washington College's Center for Historic Preservation found the skeletons in June 2001 as they painstakingly brushed powdery dirt from the surface.

Hand-wrought nails found at the scene helped place the bones as being from the 18th century.

All of the bodies were buried facing east, typical of Christian burials of the time, and each was placed in separate coffins, which had rotted away.

Museum officials, along with the help of St. George's Episcopal Church, determined the remains were probably left out of the church's cemetery when it was moved years earlier.

The bones were analyzed at Radford University by osteologists, or bone specialists.

They were then returned and put in a single casket, which was buried in the church cemetery following a special service in November.

There's still some touch-up work to be done on the square after Saturday's event.

Ornamental lighting will adorn the upper patio, and an alleyway will be re-paved, landscaped and lighted. Awnings will be installed behind some of the buildings that rim the square.

The city Planning Department played a major role in revamping the site.

"I remember moving an awful lot of dirt," said city engineer David Vogelsong. "I think it turned out just great. It's a huge improvement from before."

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Date published: 5/9/2003