SARATOGA 



N 1772, General Daniel Morgan purchased land In 

 what is now Clarke County, Virginia, and five years 

 later built the house upon this estate, naming it 

 Saratoga in honor of the second battle of Saratoga, 

 October 19, 1777, in which he had so honorably 

 served. 



At the second battle of Saratoga a large number of Hessian 

 prisoners had been captured by the Continental Army, and these 

 prisoners had been sent to Winchester, not many miles distant. 

 Among them were many skilled workmen, especially stone masons, 

 so he employed a large number of them to build for him a house 

 of stone, which stands today in excellent preservation. 



The estate of Saratoga came into the possession of the family 

 which now owns it through Nathaniel Burwell, who purchased it 

 in 1809. He married Elizabeth Nelson, known as "Pretty Betsy" 

 Nelson, of Yorktown. The place was bequeathed to Mrs. Robert 

 Powell Page, of "The Briars," and from her passed to her son, 

 R. Powell Page, who still owns it. 



From the porch one looks down on a bold spring, the over- 

 flow of which forms a pond sufficiently enticing to bring the ducks 

 from far and near. Fine oaks formerly covered the slope, and a 

 row stood in front of the house, but the last of these were de- 

 stroyed in the storm of 1922, and now one looks across the grassy 

 slopes where the sheep are grazing, to the Blue Ridge Mountains, 

 which stretch as far as the eye can see. 



Flowers have always bloomed here, but not in a formal garden. 

 There were roses and shrubs in the vegetable garden at the back 

 of the house. I can remember the servants bringing in baskets of 

 rose leaves to scatter among the linen. The greenhouse was 

 eighteen by twenty-five feet, heated by a brick flue which encircled 



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