Saunders's Wharf

One mile north, on the Rappahannock River, is Saunders’s Wharf, a center of transportation and commerce from the mid-1800s until 1937. Steamboats on the busy route that linked Fredericksburg and Baltimore picked up crops, livestock, raw materials, and passengers here and deposited manufactured goods. John Saunders (d. 1867), a farmer and merchant who owned a store in nearby Loretto, built the wharf on his estate, later known as Wheatland. Saunders’s Wharf was one of several steamboat landings in Essex County. Others included Port Micou, Layton’s, Blandfield, Tappahannock, Ware’s, and Bowler’s. The construction of highways led to the river’s decline as a major avenue of trade.