Tours and Educational Programs

Private Guided Tours:  Adult groups and educational programs for students or scouts are available for a fee. All tours are tailored for group needs, educational standards, and interests. Tours require advanced reservations. To arrange educational programs or tours of city-owned historic museums email Susan.gray@fairfaxva.gov or call 703.385.8415.

Limited Off-Site Speaker Requests: With advanced notice a staff member can be secured for off-site programs.  Contact above number for information.

The city has published a free self-guided walking tour brochure, "Courting History," that provides a brief history of the city and noteworthy buildings in the Old Town Fairfax Historic District. This brochure is available from the Fairfax Museum and Visitor Center, 10209 Main Street, or call 703.385.8414.  See Map of History.

Fairfax Museum and Visitor Center "Second Sunday" Program

Programs are held at 2 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month. Unless otherwise noted, programs are held at the Fairfax Museum and Visitor Center, 10209 Main Street. Free (unless otherwise noted). Check back to find out about additional programs planned throughout the year. Information: 703.385.8414.

 2020

 POSTPONED

Sunday, April 19-- Fairfax Museum and Visitor Center, 2p.m. -- “Kitty Barrett Pozer:  A Joyful Gardener” -- Preview the spring opening of a new exhibition on Kitty Barrett Pozer, a noted garden writer, a founder of the Fairfax Garden Club, and last private owner of Ratcliffe-Allison-Pozer House.

 Check back for future programs.

 Ratcliffe-Allison-Pozer House

10386 Main Street  - Next open for Special Virginia Garden Week tour April 21!

Ratcliffe-Allison-Pozer House and Kitty Pozer Garden, 10386 Main Street, open 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Civil War Interpretive Center at Historic Blenheim

Program Series are free and held at 2 p.m. on Saturdays (unless otherwise noted) at the Civil War Interpretive Center at Historic Blenheim, 3610 Old Lee Highway.  703.591.0560.

While we are waiting to reopen Historic Blenheim, please view some of our earlier speaker presentations:

Chandra Manning, Assistant Professor of Georgetown University, spoke on, "The Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, and the Black Soldiers." in June 2014.

 Author Hampton Newsome, presented "Richmond Must Fall: the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign," based on his book of the same title,  in August 2015.

Saturday, July 25, 2pm,  Historic Blenheim -- POSTPONED.

 Saturday, August 22, 2pm, Historic Blenheim- "Too Much for Human Endurance:  The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg” -- Author Ronald D. Kirkwood uses firsthand accounts, to re-create the sprawling XI Corps hospital complex on the Spangler family farm in Gettysburg. Stories of the family, the wounded, dying, nurses, surgeons, ambulance workers, musicians, and others are weaved seamlessly through gripping and smooth-flowing prose.  A discussion of Surgeon B.L. Hovey and family is linked to Historic Blenheim history.           

 Saturday, September 26, 2020, 2pm, Historic Blenheim--"Angelina Grimke: One Woman Against a Nation"

In 2020 we are celebrating the 100^th Anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing and protecting women's constitutional right to vote.

 Join Lynne Garvey-Hodge as she gives a first-person voice to Angelina Grimke, a Southern born early 19^th-century abolitionist who spoke out the horrors of slavery with her eldest sister, Sarah.  Angelina Grimke was an early American political activist, women's rights advocate,  and a supporter of the women's suffrage movement.

Saturday, October 24, 2 pm--  Historic Blenheim--"Voices in the Attic: The Williamstown Boys in the Civil War"

Author Carelton Young spent a decade retracing the steps of two Vermont soldiers  whose 250+ letters were found in a trunk in his parents' attic.  He will discuss the research and compelling story  of these ordinary soldiers in not so ordinary times.

Saturday, November 21, 2 pm, Historic Blenheim-- “Lee is Trapped and Must be Taken”

Author Rick Schaus focuses on the aftermath of the bloody Battle of Gettysburg and General George Meade’s response to President Lincoln’s mandate to bring about the “literal or substantial destruction” of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s retreating Army of Northern Virginia.

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