Oldal 302 [302]
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, ona 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
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