When you’re a lifelong Virginian, you can get kind of callous to history.
Or, more specifically: I am a lifelong Virginian, and I sometimes take for granted all of the history that’s been around me all these years.
I do like to tell people that I graduated from William & Mary, which is the second-oldest college in the nation (behind Harvard — boo!). And I REALLY like reminding UVa students and alums that Thomas Jefferson went to my college before starting that other one in Charlottesville.
But I admit that sometimes I’ve been less than appreciative of other historical facts. Years ago, a newspaper editor yelled at me when I was less than eager to hear about something at Historic Kenmore.
I said something like, “It’s George Washington’s sister’s house? When does it end? How far away from Washington do we go with this stuff?”
My coworker explained more about Fielding Lewis and his importance to the American Revolution, and now I can say that I was wrong. I understand why tourists visit Kenmore.
It’s also easy to see why thousands of folks visit this region for its Civil War history, and I’ve gotten caught up in some of those stories, too — especially one I wrote a while back about a brother’s quest to bring his deceased brother’s remains back home after the war.
After recently visiting my friend at her job at Stratford Hall, I have a new interest in that historic site, and Saturday, my son and I returned for an event commemorating Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence, which predates the Declaration of Independence.
Carly Fiorina, the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission’s national honorary chairwoman, spoke at that gathering about the Old Dominion’s significance to the nation, which will be 250 years old, come July 4. It’s our semiquincentennial. Just don’t ask me to pronounce that word.
“From tribal leaders, like Powhatan and Pocahontas, from the first arrival of the enslaved, and leaders of those enslaved, like James Lafayette and Gowan Pamphlet, from “Give me liberty, or give me death,” to “All men are created equal,” from the ideas that inspired it, to the battlefields that decided it, there’s simply no America without Virginia,” said Fiorina, whom you might remember as a former Republican presidential candidate. “And no better time than now to reconnect with our country, in the place that made it possible. America was made in Virginia.”
We were also pleasantly surprised to see photos of at least a handful of Fredericksburg-area folk on the side of Virginia’s VA250 Mobile Museum, which had come to Stratford for the festivities. Those included City Councilors Jannan Holmes and Will Mackintosh.
VA250 events have been going on for a while now, and they will continue throughout the year. We’ll have more about the America 250 Quilt Hanging Project in downtown Fredericksburg later this week in The Free Press, for example. And there’s a Revolutionary War talk Aug. 27 about a place I usually think of in terms of the Civil War, Chatham Manor.
So, if you’re into history, there’s plenty happening this year.
And, if you’re not, here’s why you should still be grateful for it: It brings money to the area in the form of tourism.
In 2024, the latest year for which I could find figures, the total economic impact of visitor spending in the region was $1.2 billion. That’s a number compiled from Virginia Tourism Corp. statistics.
Now, that includes tourism for reasons other than historical travel, but you can bet a lot of the total comes from tourists at our legendary sites.
And, of course, one of the things I’ve learned from spending much of my life in local government meetings is that when tourists fork out their money, it generates tax revenue. That revenue, in turn, means local people may not have to pay as much in real estate and personal property taxes.
So, maybe, when we meet tourists around here, we should thank them, instead of doing what we did in college when we saw them at Colonial Williamsburg, which was, when asked for directions, to give the wrong ones.
On purpose. For a laugh.
