The Court House

The Court House. Fredericksburg: Timeless.. , Architect James Renwick, who designed the Smithsonian Castle, also designed the Fredericksburg Court House, which was built in 1852. It is the only Gothic Revival court house in Virginia. Within the cupola is a bell from the Revere Foundry in Boston, presented to the town by Silas Wood, in 1828. Wood had married Julia Anne Chew Brock, of Fredericksburg, and explained his gift an exchange of a bell for a belle., During the Civil War, the cupola provided a point of observation during two battles (December 13, 1862 and May 3, 1863). After the war, the occupying Union army administered the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen's Bureau) and used the court building to hear cases brought by former slaves. The building also housed the town's fire-fighting equipment until the early twentieth century and remained in active use as a court until 2014., [Captions:] , New York architect James Renwick designed the Smithsonian Castle, which had a major influence on the Gothic Revival style in the United States and is clearly reflected in the Fredericksburg Court House., Union General O.O. Howard watched the 1862 battle from the court house cupola. After the war, he would head the Freedmen's Bureau, whose local headquarters were in the Farmer's Bank building (to your right rear) and whose Freedmen's Court held session in the court house (in front of you). Howard University, in Washington, D.C., was named in his honor., Although the cupola roof has been modified and the step gables removed, this Civil War sketch shows that the Court House exterior has otherwise changed very little., In the 1880s, a photographer hauled his equipment into the steeple of St. George's Church and exposed a series of images of Fredericksburg. This view is the vista seen in the Civil War sketch from the court house., This Civil War sketch is the scene that observers saw from the court house cupola. The depicted houses still line Hanover Street, which is a block in front of you. Union General Darius N. Couch write: "I climbed the steeple of the court house and from above the haze and smoke got a clear view of the field. . . I had never before seen fighting like that, nothing approaching it in terrible uproar and destruction."