HISTORY THURSDAY: 217 Princess Anne Street
Several houses stood on this parcel, but the house that stands at the address today dates to 1877.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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One of the earliest owners of this lot was Bataille Massey, described in Fredericksburg’s historic court records in the first half of the 1800s as a “free Negro” and a carpenter.
An enslaved person named “Batley” was emancipated in the will of Robert Massey of King George in 1805, according to court records. Batley was emancipated along with “Lucy”—although the will stipulated that Lucy would be not be freed until after the death of Robert Massey’s wife.
In late 1811, Massey was one of three Black men who purchased lots on Princess Anne Street from Benjamin Botts, an attorney who was well-known in the courts in Fredericksburg, Prince William, and Richmond, according to research conducted for the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation’s marker program in 2016 by Roger Engels.
“An 1808 court case in Fredericksburg notes that Botts was busy defending Aaron Burr in his treason trial,” Engels wrote.
Botts, along with his wife and 70 other people, died on December 26, 1811, when a fire broke at the Richmond Theater. The sale of his Fredericksburg lots to Massey, Anthony Starr, and Frederick Dawson—all described in court records as “free Negros”—was incomplete in all three cases.
Massey was the only one of the three to ever receive a deed to the land he purchased. In his case, the deed was issued in 1821, after Botts’ estate sued him for the purchase price of $272.50 plus interest dating from October 11, 1811. Massey paid the amount owed, received a deed, and then sold the property.
Anthony Starr and Frederick Dawson both petitioned the court in 1813 for their deeds, asserting that they had contracted to purchase land and paid for it, according to Engels.
“The estate did not dispute the plaintiffs’ statements, but the court did not order issuance of a deed,” Engels wrote. “Instead, it required that each of the children of Benjamin Botts renounce all claims to the subject properties upon attaining the age of 21 years, an age which the youngest would not reach until 1830. If either Starr or Dawson ever received a deed, it was not recorded.”
Both Dawson and Star purchased and freed their own wives, according to court records. A deed of emancipation for Patsey, age 40, and a 9-year-old daughter named Patsey Ann was recorded in 1833, showing that Frederick Dawson purchased them from Hugh Fry.
And an 1816 bill of sale shows that Anthony Star purchased “Nelly Star his wife” from the estate of Nancy Linton, and emancipated her.
According to Engels, Massey and Star both built small houses on their lots, but these did not survive the Civil War. Massey’s lot had several different owners—in 1823, according to the chain of title, the purchase price was “... a negro man, Slave, named Jacob.”
By 1877, the owner was A.M. Garner, a builder, and according to the Virginia Star, he was “building a new and handsome dwelling house on the lower end of Princess Anne street, near Hazel Hill.” This is the house that still stands at 217 Princess Anne.
In 1915, the house and lot were sold to R.E. Estes, who owned and operated a grocery store at 415 Princess Anne Street near the train station. The business was later operated by his wife, son, and grandson.
Grandson Charles E. Estes died in 1987 and according to his obituary in the Free Lance-Star, also operated Estes’s Lunch and Estes Fishing Tackle shop. The tackle shop had a bar inside called the Bat Cave, which was “very popular with the beer-drinking, blue-collar crowd during the 70s,” and where Estes was “a well-known personality.”
In 1967, Bernard and Gertrude Ellington bought 217 Princess Anne Street. Bernard had met Gertrude in Germany while he was in the Army, and Gertrude told the Free Lance-Star in 1984 that her citizenship, which she received in 1956 after more than 20 lessons in preparation, was something she was “very proud” of.
Gertrude Ellington was also featured in a 1973 Free Lance-Star article about having donated a total of 10 gallons of blood to the American Red Cross during the course of her life. She told the paper about the first time she donated blood, to a young soldier who’d had his legs blown off in a bombing raid in 1944, in a bed-to-bed transfusion.
From then on, she became a regular donor.
“When you see somebody that needs something, I think you should go ahead and do something about it,” she told the paper.
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