Fredericksburg Area Museum

Since the late 1980s, the Fredericksburg Area Museum (FAM) has aimed to preserve the city of Fredericksburg’s stories, artifacts, and cultural heritage. The museum itself is located in downtown Fredericksburg’s historic Town Hall and displays hundreds of Indigenous artifacts. It also houses an exhibit about the Patawomeck Tribe, tracing the tribe’s history from the 1600s to the present day. This exhibit features census records, government correspondence, and photographs of tribal members at Potomac Creek. 

Historically, the land that constitutes the museum’s location is located along the fall line, where multiple Virginia tribes, including the Patawomeck, came together and interacted for trading, foraging, political, and social purposes. Many of these tribes were part of the Powhatan Confederacy, which the Patawomeck were affiliated with. Additionally, the land surrounding the museum became a major fishing area for many tribes. On John Smith’s map, the village closest to the museum is Secobeck, located on the south side of the Rappahannock River. 

Learn more about the Fredericksburg Area Museum through Connor Buchanan, a citizen of the Patawomeck tribe, and curator of FAM’s exhibit about the Patawomeck. Additionally, visit the museum’s official website here: https://www.famva.org/.