_At the Rising Sun_ _Where Famous Men Met; and Mine Host Brewed Punch and Sedition._ Standing back a few feet from the Main Street of Fredericksburg, the Rising Sun Tavern looks out on the automobiles and trucks that hurry by over the concrete streets. Silk and woolen mills and "pants" factories spin and weave and rumble, while the old tavern, with the dignity of its century and a half calmly flaunts the sign of the rising sun with its radii of red light. The knocker that felt the hand of almost every famous American of early days still hangs kindly out. Built in 1750 or 1760, the Rising Sun Tavern is at least 160 years old. In the days when American men were slowly being forced from their English allegiance it stood in an open space, surrounded by green trees. The road on which it was built ran out from Fredericksburg toward Falmouth and the "upper county," and the tavern was outside the city limits. If one could stand and see the tavern as in a movie "fade out," the modern houses about it would dim, and, fresh in making and painting, the old tavern would stand alone beside a rutted road alongside which a footpath runs through the grass. Oak trees line the road, and reach down to the river. On the porch, or passing up and down the steps are gentlemen of the Northern Neck, the Potomac plantations, and the Rappahannock Valley, in splendid broadcloth, laced ruffles, black silk stockings, with buckles at the knees and the instep, powdered hair and the short wigs then the fashion, and ladies in the fashionable red cloaks and long, full dresses with the "Gypsy bonnets" tied under their chins, and hair "crimped" and rolled at each side. At the back yard of the tavern in the old garden grew a profusion of tulips, pink violets, purple iris, hyacinths and the flowering almond and passion fruit, with here and there rose bushes. Inside in the front room flamed the log fire and at the rear of this was the dining-room, where for men and women and boys, the old negro slave who served the gentle folk had mint juleps, or claret that had thrice crossed the ocean, or brandy and soda. [Sidenote: _When Weedon Was the Host_] Virginia in the days between 1760 and 1776 reached the "golden age," and it was during these times that George Weedon, host of the Rising Sun, made that hostelry famous for its hospitality, and made himself famous for his constant advocacy of American liberty. Of Weedon, who was later to become a general and win commendation at the Battle of Brandywine, the English traveler, Dr. Smith, wrote: "I put up at the tavern of one Weedon, who was ever active and zealous in blowing the flames of sedition." Weedon, one of the pioneers of the movement for freedom, made his Tavern the gathering place for all the gentlemen of the "neighborhood" of which Dr. Smith says: "The neighborhood included all of Westmoreland County, the Northern Neck and all other counties as far as Mount Vernon."