Stranica 303 [303]
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HiSTORIC GARDENS. OF UVIBRGINIA
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the Lees gave the great Commander-in-Chief of its armies and four
other generals.
When Stratford House was built, the European colonists in
America were few in number, and widely separated. “They were
hardly able to defend themselves against the Indians who peopled
the interior and constituted an ever-threatening peril. The new¬
comers clung to the coast line and the banks of the larger rivers
flowing to the sea, as if longing to maintain their water connection
with the old country as closely as possible—like children loving the
touch of the mother hand and fearing to lose it—and for the prac¬
tical reason that the easiest, safest, frequently the only, means of
passage and transportation from point to point, family to family,
was by water. Stratford House was built years before the moun¬
tains of Virginia had been explored; when the rich valley of the
Shenandoah was an unknown land, shrouded by forest, mystery
and fear, and an expedition to discover it was considered too dan¬
gerous to be undertaken.
Since the stately shape of the house, as it is, rose above the
noble river this great nation has been born and come to its enormous
strength. From the strip of territory and the few hundreds of in¬
habitants stretched along the Atlantic coast, it has extended from
ocean to ocean and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.
The Stratford House is built in the shape of the letter H, with
a group of four chimneys in each of the wings. In one of these
groups is a secret room, which evidently was occupied at times, as
is proved by candle grease, smoke from lamps or candles, and
traces of ink and grease on the floor. The centre room, or library,
opens at each side on the garden by doors reached by stone steps.
No lofty columned portico adorns the house. It was built before
the architecture we call “Colonial” was generally adopted in this
country. Plain and well-worn stone steps rise directly from the
garden to the house. A somewhat unusual feature is a square brick
house at each corner of the main building, a short distance away,
used respectively as kitchen, laundry, office and cow barn.
1186]