Stafford Hall

253 Great House Rd, Stratford, VA 22558, USA

Virginia

state

VA - Westmoreland

county

VA - Fredericksburg

city

MUSEUM

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Stratford Hall is a historic house museum near Lerty in Westmoreland County, Virginia. It was the plantation house of four generations of the Lee family of Virginia (with descendants later to expand to Maryland and other states). Stratford Hall is the boyhood home of two Founding Fathers of the United States and signers of the United States Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794), and Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734–1797). Stratford Hall is also the birthplace of Robert E. Lee (1807). The Stratford Hall estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

SITE FEATURES

Surviving Structures

On this site...

Thomas Lee (1690–1750) was a Virginian who served as acting Governor of the colony and was a strong advocate for westward expansion. Lee purchased the land for Stratford Hall in 1717, aware of its agricultural and commercial potential as a waterfront site. Construction of the Georgian Great House did not begin until the late 1730s. Designed by an unknown architect, the brick Great House is a two-story H-shaped structure, surrounded on four corners by attending outbuildings, all of which still stand today.

HOME

EST. 1738

Amid this busy world, Thomas Lee and his wife Hannah Harrison Ludwell (1701–1749) raised eight children, six sons, and two daughters. His eldest son, Philip Ludwell Lee Sr., Esquire (1727–1775), inherited Stratford Hall. Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) and Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734–1797) were delegates from Virginia to the Second Continental Congress and signers of the United States Declaration of Independence. Richard Henry was later instrumental in guiding the fledgling nation, serving as President of the Continental Congress in 1784–85. Thomas Ludwell Lee, active in local politics, served as a Virginian legislator and helped compose the Virginia Declaration of Rights. William Lee (1739–1795) and Dr. Arthur Lee (1740–1792) were diplomats to Kingdom of Great Britain during the turbulent struggle for American independence. Hannah Lee was an early proponent of women's rights, and Alice Lee married the prominent physician William Shippen Jr. (1736–1808) of Philadelphia.