History Thursday: 306 Hawke Street
The structure was originally built as a stable in 1817.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Edgar Allan Poe, the 1807 fire that destroyed one-third of Fredericksburg, an unusual 19th-century divorce, and a World War II-era postman are some of the interesting people and events that have ties to this brick building and the lot it stands on.
The structure, described as a stable and then later as a tenement, was first built in 1817, and the choice of brick as a material was the direct result of a fire that started 10 years earlier in the home of the lot owner’s father, William Stanard.
The fire of 1807, which destroyed one-third of oldest part of Fredericksburg, started in William Stanard’s home—1200 Princess Anne Street—during his funeral, writes Susan Fennell in her research on 306 Hawke Street for the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation’s marker program.
Stanard’s son, Robert, and his business partner, Garrit Minor, bought four city lots together in 1814, including the lot where 306 Hawke Street stands now. After the 1807 fire, there was a push by community leaders—especially Robert Stanard—to “make structures in materials that were less combustible.”
Robert Stanard, a bank director, and his wife Jane, initially lived in Fredericksburg, but by 1822 they moved permanently to Richmond. It was there that their son, Robert Jr., became a classmate and friend of Edgar Allan Poe—and Poe developed a crush on his friend’s mother.
He “would call her by the name Helen because, in his eyes, she was the epitome of beauty and grace, like Helen of Troy,” Fennell writes. Jane Stanard was the inspiration for Poe’s poem “To Helen,” and Poe and Robert Stanard would make regular pilgrimages to her grave after she died, “insane,” in 1824.
During the Civil War, the brick stable and adjacent lots, including a larger brick house, were owned by the Joseph Alsop. Land tax records do not indicate that the brick stable was rented out between 1858 and 1875, when Alsop owned it.
There were five children in the Alsop family, including two sons who served in the Confederacy and a daughter, Elizabeth, who kept a journal during the war, which has since been published as “The Journal of Elizabeth Maxwell Alsop Wynne.”
In an entry written in April 1865, when the Civil War was ending, Elizabeth wrote, “How hard it is! How hard! Seeing them (our enemies) walking our streets, forcing our grey-headed fathers to take the oath [of allegiance to the Union]; and feeling that our cause is lost.”
Joseph Alsop was pardoned for his participation in the Confederacy under the “twenty thousand dollar” clause, Fennell writes— “This meant his real and personal wealth, valued at $130,000 in 1860, had dropped to under $20,000 by 1865.”
Alsop’s son sold the property to the firm Hunter and Frost, which operated Farmer’s Friend Plow Works, but in 1875, they carved out the 306 Hawke Street plot and sold it for $350 to Thomas Murray, a jeweler, and his wife Mary Elizabeth.
The brick stable was rented, likely by a member of Mary Elizabeth’s family. In 1887, “in an unusual move for the time,” Fennell writes, Mary Elizabeth filed for divorce from Thomas. The divorce was granted on the grounds that Thomas had “visited Destry Jennings, a woman of ill fame,” according to historic court records.
Mary Elizabeth stayed in Fredericksburg, but census records show that Thomas Murray moved to Baltimore. He sold the 306 Hawke Street lot to Rufus Limerick, who was a blacksmith, and used the brick stable as a source of rental income.
Rufus Limerick’s son, Mercer, enlisted in the military and served in World War I. He returned to Fredericksburg and worked for the postal service for 47 years.
He was a postman in Fredericksburg during World War II, and was quoted in an October 12, 1944, Free Lance-Star article about his job.
The hardest letters to deliver, the postmen agree, are those returned to sender marked “Deceased” or “Missing.” “Had to return a batch of letters last week,” said carrier Mercer Limerick, “to the fiancée of a man in the Army. I sure hate to have to do that.”
Mercer Limerick died in 1967, and two years later, his housekeeper, Florence Chewning, took out an “In Memoriam” ad in the Free Lance-Star for her former employer: “I often think of you dear friend / The days we worked together; / But God knew best / And he took you home / With him to rest,/ Your memory will linger on.”
The current owner of 306 Hawke Street bought the property in 2017, Fennell writes. The owner has removed dry wall in certain places to reveal the original double brick walls and “hand-hewn wall plates.”
“The Virginia Department of Historic Resources considers 306 Hawke Street as a contributor to the historic character of Fredericksburg,” Fennell writes. “As this designation, it is noted that this structure was built during a significant period in Fredericksburg history and retains its appearance from that time.”
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