History Thursday: 530 George Street
House was built in 1887 by David Ennis, who had been born into slavery.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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On November 30, 1887, the Fredericksburg Daily Star included the following two lines in an article titled “Improvements:” “David Ennis, colored, is having a two-story frame dwelling erected on George Street.”
That house still stands at 530 George Street. Ennis was born into slavery in Cumberland County and according to his 1922 Daily Star obituary, he returned to that county at some point, “where he was made sheriff and there kept store.”
Ennis bought the George Street lot from Martha Innis in 1887 and completed the house in 1888.
In Fredericksburg, he worked as a livery driver and was also licensed minister, according to research prepared by Rachel Sederquest for the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation’s Marker Program.
He was a farmer who owned 49 acres of land in Spotsylvania; served on the board of the Normal and Industrial Institute, the first local high school in Fredericksburg for Black students, in 1905; and was a trustee of Shiloh Baptist Church (New Site).
The Daily Star covered Ennis’s 1897 wedding to Jane Redmond, describing him as “the popular colored liveryman of this city,” and her as the daughter of Henry Redmond, “one of the most industrious, prosperous and respected of his race in this section.”
A few years after their marriage, the Ennises sold the George Street house to another Black couple, Ernest and Sarah Hawkins, who then sold it to George and Elizabeth Walker.
George Walker, who according to his 1952 Free Lance-Star obituary was a railroad worker and “lifelong colored resident of Fredericksburg,” bequeathed the house to his “beloved wife Elizabeth” in a handwritten will. After her death, it was jointly owned by their eight children until 1958.
The Walker children sold 530 George Street to Levin and Betsy Houston, who owned much of the area on George Street, including the house next door at 536 George Street, where they lived.
Levin Houston taught music at what was then Mary Washington College for 35 years. Before teaching at Mary Washington, he led a self-named orchestra, played with a jazz group aboard trans-Atlantic ocean liners in the 1920s, worked on Broadway plays in New York City, and had an original piano composition performed at Carnegie Hall.
Levin Houston died in 1990 and 530 George Street was sold to W. Brown Morton III, now-emeritus professor of historic preservation, in 1995.
This story has been updated to state that Levin and Betsy Houston owned 530 George but lived next door at 536 George.
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