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HisToRtec. {GARDENS ORY VERGINIA
days. That was "Aunt" Elinor and her room—where every
skater was privileged to go to repair skates or, in colder weather,
to get warm. She was Mrs. Anderson’s sempstress, a fine example
of the best of the colored race, dying from a broken heart a few
weeks after the death of her mistress.
A pretty story has always been told of the courtship of General
Anderson and his first wife, Sally Archer, the daughter of Dr.
Robert Archer, surgeon in the “old army," as the United States
Army has always been spoken of by those who were in it before
1861, and who left it then or before. His home was in Norfolk;
his summer home, Olivera, was where the town of Phoebus now is,
but he was stationed at Fortress Monroe. He had several daugh¬
ters. Coming into his home one day he announced that a handsome
young lieutenant, who had just graduated second in his class, en¬
gineers, at West Point, had been detailed there to build a fort on the
Rip Raps, and that whoever guessed his first name might have him.
Sally, not quite seventeen, said, in her gentle, soft voxe, "Joseph" ;
and, in reality, in a few months she became the wife of this young
lieutenant, was the mother of his children and his devoted com¬
panion for forty-four years!
But, to the garden and house! The latter was a typical Colonial
house of grey stucco, the spacious front porch with its Corin¬
thian columns surmounted by the Greek pediment. Through the
porch passed not only the best of the town, but also “the stranger
within its gates’’—for this home was known during its whole ex¬
istence for its unbounded hospitality, here and abroad. General
Lee’s frequent visits there during the War Between the. States
brought happiness to all, the children included. His love for, and
recognition of them, was ever present. One of the daughters of
the house tells how he always drew her, a little girl, to his side on
the sofa in the family sitting-room, raised her hand and kissed it
with the affection of a father, the deference of a gallant!
On their return from Europe in September, 1871, Mr. and Mrs.
Jefferson Davis and their family came directly here, and Mrs.
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