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This year, Americans will commemorate the 150th
anniversary of the Civil War. While there is no glory in a war that resulted
in the deaths of over 620,000 Americans and a president, divided families
and a nation, and left cities and lives in ruin, it is fitting that
Cooperative Living journey down home to historic Stratford Hall Plantation
for an examination of some of the truths behind the birthplace and heritage
of the leader of the Confederate armies — General Robert E. Lee.
Photo Courtesy of
Stratford Hall Plantation
From the magnificent lawn fronting the Great House to the
vast cliffs overlooking the Potomac River, Stratford Hall Plantation is a
quiet spot in the Northern Neck that inspired grand decisions and
far-reaching plans for the nation.
Set on nearly 2,000 gently rolling acres along the
Potomac near Westmoreland State Park and just downriver from the birthplace
of George Washington, Stratford Hall is still a working plantation that
offers a tranquil setting with hours of leisure activities for families.
Tour the 18-room Great House and hear plenty of “back
room” stories of the Lee family from the guides. Learn how four generations
of Lees lived almost entirely off the land during the 18th century.
The Great House was built in the shape of the letter “H”
with brick walls that are 18 and 24 inches thick. With a total of 10,800
square feet of living space, the family quarters on the second level are
spacious while the ground level rooms include the school, wet and dry
storage, spinning and weaving, warming kitchen and the housekeeper’s
A few steps away from the Great House is a large brick
building housing both a kitchen and laundry.
Guide Martha Newman
talks to visitors.
“It was the most active building on the plantation,” says
guide Martha Newman.
At 3:30 every morning, slaves started the cooking fires
in a hearth large enough to roast an entire ox. No matter how hot and humid
the summer days became, cooking and baking continued for 12 hours.
Because of its proximity to the Great House, the newly
restored Southwest Outhouse was a gathering place that housed slaves working
in the home. There were many other slave quarters of lesser size scattered
around the plantation to shelter some 200 indentured servants and slaves.
Overlooking a formal English garden is a burial vault
built over the Lee family vaults. Plantings of herbs and vegetables mingle
with espalier-trained fruit trees in the kitchen garden, while Sebrite
“Colonial era” chickens still make a moveable feast of the weeds.
The 16-stall stable and coach house displays a variety of
19th-century wheeled vehicles, including the Bremo Coach that carried
General Lafayette to Monticello in 1825.
The plantation now and then
The stone and frame
mill that is still used to grind wheat and
corn into products sold in the plantation
store. Photo courtesy of Stratford Hall
Miles of nature trails lead hikers through the preserve
and by pastures of grazing Devon cattle, a variety brought from England in
1623. The flatlands are currently used for organic farming. And the beach
offers kids adventure-hunting for sharks’ teeth and other fossils below the
“Cliffs,” a rare geological phenomenon compacted with sea materials and
fossils dated to some 15-million years old.
A reconstructed 18th-century gristmill is down the old
tobacco-rolling road near the landing. At one time the wharf teemed with
ships and activity, including a ship’s store, warehouse, many trade shops
and a shipbuilding business. Tobacco was the principal crop, but by
mid-century, the heyday of tobacco was past and it became necessary to
cultivate other products, which were loaded onto one of the Lee vessels for
market. Hurricanes destroyed all the structures at the landing, but a pond
and dam still provide the water that flows through the reconstructed mill
and turns the huge wheel and great millstone for grinding wheat and corn
into products sold in the gift shop.
The shop is another lesson in 18th-century living,
featuring Stratford’s famous homemade fruitcakes, plum puddings, apple
chutney, ginger cookies and other Virginia-made foods. Local artisans
created most of the pottery and crafts. Sales clerk Gerry Burrell, who
started working there is August, says the best part of her job is “meeting
all the wonderful people who visit the plantation.”
Tucked into the woodlands are charming guest cabins for
folks looking to stay on the plantation for a few days. About a mile away is
Westmoreland State Park for visitors who prefer camping in tents or RVs.
A rustic dining hall with stone fireplace and views of
the woods serves visitors and guests. The plantation offers a wide variety
of special events throughout the year, including a popular carriage show
every three years. “Coaching Weekend” will be held May 7 – 8, featuring a
parade of carriages, entertainment, vendors and artisans.
Also a big hit are the summer camp weekends for
grandparents and their grandchildren, ages 6-12. Don’t worry; the
air-conditioned guest cabins are cozy enough to accommodate the many wedding
parties and group conferences that frequent this destination.
But the main feature is always the Great House,
considered to be the finest Georgian building constructed in America,
according to Dr. Paul Reber, executive director of the plantation.
Executive Director Dr. Paul Reber.
Dr. Reber notes the plantation is undergoing its first
restoration since 1929, when Mrs. Charles Lanier took an option to purchase
it, establishing the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation and organizing a
board of directors made up of one woman from each state, much as it does
today. Despite the Depression, the ladies raised the funds to purchase and
save the plantation from ruin. The name Stratford, after Lee’s ancestral
estate in England, was expanded to Stratford Hall Plantation by the
As the current restoration progresses, throughout the
house small patches of wallboard, flooring and finishes were removed
allowing a peek at construction materials of the era.
“This was the home to four generations of Lees, including
the first native governor of Virginia ...” says Dr.
Reber. They were a family of loyal patriots who were “colonists,
revolutionaries, nation builders and Secessionists,” he said.
There are probably few families that have a more
intrinsic association with the flow of our nation’s history than the Lees of
Stratford Hall. The contributions they made to America are unsurpassed by
any American family of the day. While their patriotism in shaping a new
nation can be traced back to the arrival of Richard Lee I at Jamestown in
the late 1630s, Stratford was built 100 years later by his grandson, Thomas
Thomas was a prominent politician and visionary who
negotiated the treaty with the Iroquois Indians to open the Appalachian
Trail and pave the way to westward expansion. He bought the land, 1,443
acres known as the “Cliffs,” in 1717 for its sweeping view of ship movements
on the Potomac River. However, the family did not build on the property
until the late 1730s, after they were burned out of their home on a nearby
His sons were politically active. Brothers Richard Henry
and Francis Lightfoot were signers of the Declaration of Independence. His
great-grandson, Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee III was a Revolutionary War
hero serving under General George Washington. He was a three-time one-term
governor of Virginia. But he wasn’t a farmer, so about the time his fifth
son, Robert Edward Lee, was born in 1807, the family’s finances were on a
downhill spiral and Light Horse Harry was soon carried away to debtor’s
A Lifelong Impression
Famed Civil War
General Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee was not quite four years old when the
family moved from Stratford to a vastly different lifestyle in Alexandria.
His eldest brother took over the plantation after marrying a young heiress,
giving Robert the opportunity for boyhood visits. Stratford left an
impression on him that he carried throughout his life.
Raised in humble surroundings, Robert E. Lee grew up to
become one of the nation’s greatest military leaders. He had served in the
U.S. Army for 32 years when, on the eve of the Civil War, President Abraham
Lincoln offered him command of the Union Army. While Lee was utterly opposed
to secession and considered slavery evil, he had to choose between his
strong conviction to country and his responsibility to family, friends and
his native Virginia. He wrote he could take no part in the invasion of the
South and resigned his commission. Reluctantly, he led the Confederate
armies until war’s end in April of 1865.
In the midst of war on Christmas Day, 1861, with their
Arlington home confiscated and occupied by Union Troops, he wrote his wife
of his longing to return to Stratford:
In the absence of a home, I wish I could purchase Stratford. That is the
only place I could go to ... that would inspire me with feelings of pleasure
and local love ...” he wrote.
But the defeated general never returned to his
After the war, Robert E. Lee became president of
Washington College in Lexington, restoring the school from financial ruin
and striving to equip students with the character and knowledge he knew
would be necessary to rebuild the South and reunite the states. After his
death in Lexington in 1870, Washington College became Washington and Lee
Today, Stratford Hall Plantation offers a variety of
programs year-round at the Northern Neck site, homeplace to one of America’s