STRATFORD 



ICHARD LEE, of England, founder of a family 

 which made and brilliantly shone in American his- 

 tory through two centuries, and who brought here 

 a name destined to splendid immortality, patented 

 in 1640 the land on which Stratford House was 

 built. His home was established in a dense forest 

 of oak and sycamore, on a high bluff overlooking the Potomac where 

 it is broad, deep and beautiful. Nothing remains or is known of the 

 original building. Records prove that it was destroyed by fire. 

 The house now standing was built about 1725. Evidently the 

 Lees then were in high favor at the British court, and by some 

 special quality or service had won the good will of Queen Caroline, 

 because, we are told in Sale's "Manors of Virginia," that she sent 

 Mr. Lee ''a bountiful present out of her own Privy Purse." From 

 this gift, the Stratford House, now standing, and in which General 

 Robert E. Lee was born, was built. 



Such a mansion puts before us clearly, after the intervening 

 decades and vicissitudes, the customs, habits and mode of life of 

 the period in which it was created and first occupied. In Itself it 

 is history: its rooms the chapters; its stories volumes; its furniture 

 illustrations; its inmates the characters; Its garden the bindings. 



Stratford House, with solid walls of glazed bricks and massive 

 rough-hewn timbers, represents and expresses well the strength and 

 solidity of the sturdy race of Lees which has stood always for what 

 was finest and best. They have given to their State one governor, 

 four members of the council of State, twelve members of the House 

 of Burgesses; to the State of Maryland one governor, two coun- 

 cillors, three members of the Assembly; to the American Revolu- 

 tion four members of the convention of 1776, two signers of the 

 Declaration of Independence and two brothers representing their 

 government at the courts of Europe. To the Confederate States 



[185] 



