"Giving Flowers" to a Forgotten Wife and Mother
Elizabeth Spooner's tombstone was found abandoned on a Spotsy farm. Long part of the FXBG Area Museum's collection, it will be placed in the Masonic Cemetery with that of her father & son.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Some 35 years ago, the owners of a Spotsylvania farm found an abandoned tombstone on their property.
It reads, “Sacred to the memory of Elizabeth B. Spooner, Wife of GWB Spooner of Fredericksburg, who departed this life 23rd Feb 1803 in the 27th year of her age.”
The owners of the farm donated the tombstone to the Fredericksburg Area Museum in 1991. It was cared for and treated with respect, but for years, Elizabeth Spooner remained a mystery.
“For years, nobody knew where her body was,” said Kylie Thomson, FAM’s curator of collections. “The farm in Spotsylvania is far from where her family lived” in Fredericksburg, near the Rising Sun Tavern.
Thomson became fascinated by Elizabeth Spooner, who was the mother of seven and the wife of a city merchant, and has spent the past two years trying to find out more about her. It’s not easy, because—like many 18th and 19th-century women—Elizabeth Spooner appears in official records only in relation to her male relations.
What is known is that her father, Gustavus Brown Wallace, was a lieutenant colonel who fought with George Washington in the Revolutionary War. He was also a a member of Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge No. 4, and he and Spooner’s infant son, Henry, are both buried in Fredericksburg’s Masonic Cemetery.
This Saturday, FAM and the Lodge will honor Spooner by officially placing her tombstone in the cemetery alongside those of her father and her son. The public is invited to the ceremony.
Spooner’s existence in public records is especially nebulous because not only was she a woman, but she was also illegitimate. Wallace was “a lifelong bachelor,” and though he and other family members privately acknowledged that Spooner was his daughter, the fact was not publicly acknowledged during his lifetime, said Mike Dove, the Fredericksburg Lodge’s Past Master.
“It feels like we’re righting a wrong by acknowledging her as his daughter,” Dove said. “It feels good to help a brother [Mason] out after a couple of centuries.”
Wallace himself, one of Fredericksburg’s “lesser-known Revolutionary War veterans and businessmen,” will be the subject of a lecture Thomson is giving at the Masonic Lodge on Thursday, May 28.
But, Thomson said, there’s still more to find out about Wallace and Spooner.
“We know her father emancipated an enslaved woman named Linney, and her name does appear again in the records, but not with freedom,” Thomson said. Instead, Linney is being “appraised” in later records.
For Thomson, it’s not only Elizabeth Spooner who will be finally getting her flowers on April 11.
“This is for all those who have lost their names” in the records, she said.
More Events Planned to Highlight Lesser-Known Stories from the Revolutionary Era
FAM’s staff have many events planned in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War that seek to highlight lesser-known stories from the era.
There’s a new walking tour, “Revolutionary Women of Fredericksburg,” which will take place on Saturday, April 25, and again on Saturday, July 25.
The tour explores how women in Fredericksburg both supported and did not support the Revolutionary War, and examines the idea of liberty and rights and how circumstances—such as being widowed—afforded some women more rights than others, said Clarissa Sanders, FAM’s acting director and director of interpretation and programs.
There’s a new exhibit, “Witness to a Revolution: 250 Years of History,” which examines Fredericksburg’s “role in the fight for independence and the legacy it has carried through generations.”
It will look at “how we have talked about the Revolutionary War since it happened,” paying special attention to how we have viewed the era during times of great social change, such as the Civil War, Sanders said.
The exhibit, which opened on Friday, also includes hands-on opportunities, such as the recreation by theater students at the University of Mary Washington of a colonial tavern.
“People can sit and play tavern games” and through that activity, learn about the effects of the Stamp Act, because playing cards fell under it, Sanders said.
The museum is launching a 1776 Book Club, which will meet monthly starting in May and will explore people, ideas, and events that shaped the Revolution. At the first meeting, on May 14, readers and museum staff will discuss Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom by Michael Aubrecht.
On May 28, Thomson will host a Revolutionary War-centered edition of the series “What Remains,” which explores history through the artifacts that have been left behind—and on June 11, “What Remains” goes to the Masonic Lodge, to explore the legacy of Freemasonry in Fredericksburg.
“There are many things that mix our two buildings together,” Dove said. The lodge was often used as a civic center, and members through the years have included many of the city’s leaders—a “Who’s Who” of Fredericksburg, Dove said.
Find out more about all of FAM’s 250th programming here.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
