Housh-Goodwin Funeral Home

Hamilton, who is the museum’s manager, pulled a scrap of what may have been a white cup edged in blue out of a plastic bag, and then found a larger shard with the same colors.“This could connect to this piece,” she said as she placed them together on a table in the house’s foyer Wednesday.The bag’s contents also include some animal bones that had probably been discarded by a cook, pieces of oxidized glass that could have been part of a bottle, a factory-made mother-of-pearl button and a shard of blue and white Chinese transferware. Earlier finds included nails, a child’s marble and several shoes.“This is like Christmas in July,” said Hamilton about the latest tantalizing tidbits left by the house’s occupants over the years. “For an historian, this is beyond exciting.”The Washington Heritage Museums, which operates the Mary Washington House and two other nearby historic properties, is using a $50,000 matching grant from the Mary Morton Parsons Foundation in Richmond to renovate the Goodwin wing of the large white frame house at 1200 Charles St. That part of the house has been used as office space, storage and a gift shop over the years, and hasn’t been opened to the public for some time. The rest of the house remains open for tours.Habalis Construction Inc., a Fredericksburg firm specializing in preserving and renovating historic properties, is doing the work on the wing. It includes updating what has been known as the Betsy Houston Meeting Room as well as the catering kitchen, and installing heating and air conditioning.One goal is to make this part of the house more attractive as an event rental space—the meeting room is used only a few times a year—and to give visitors more reasons to return. Last year, visitation was just shy of 11,000, said Anne R. Darron, the Washington Heritage Museums’ executive director.She said that spaces on the first floor could be used for brides preparing for a wedding in the house’s garden. Small business meetings or other events such as graduations could be held there, and it could eventually serve as temporary exh... (Fredericksburg.com)