The Stratford Hall Hunter Pace will be held on Sept 12 ( raindate Sept 13) at Stratford Hall Historic Preserve
This is a fundraiser with all proceeds going to Stratford hall. Caroline Hunt is putting this on in honor of the 250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, to help preservation at the Lee family home, where two signers of the Declaration lived. The Lees also foxhunted, and we want to include foxhunting into celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Date: Sept. 12, Rain Date Sept. 13
Stratford Hall was the home of the Lees of Virginia. It was the only family to have two brothers as signers of the Declaration of Independence
RICHARD HENRY LEE, 1732-1794.
Third son of Thomas and Hannah Lee, Richard Henry was an imposing statesman renowned for his eloquence and leadership during the American Revolution. He co-authored the 1766 Leedstown Resolutions, proposed independence from Britain on June 7, 1776, served as chair of the Marine Committee during the war, was one of two Lees to sign the Declaration of Independence, and held several leadership positions in early national America. He raised a large family with first wife Anne Aylett and second wife Anne Gaskins Pinkcard on his Chantilly plantation near Stratford.
FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, 1734-1797.
Fourth son of Thomas and Hannah Lee, Frank or ‘Loudoun’ was remembered by Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) as a model of “pure” public service. He was an even-tempered member of that “band of brothers” who drove the Revolution in Virginia and one of 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. He mentored younger brother William and collaborated with him in tobacco exports to London. Above all, Frank savored life with his wife Rebecca Tayloe on their Menokin plantation near Stratford.
Foxhunting at Stratford
Indeed, the Lees did hunt foxes at Stratford and its environs. Charles Carter Lee, Robert E. Lee’s older brother, recounted his childhood at Stratford in the mid-19th century, and his reminiscences are in the collection of the Alderman Library, UVA. The excerpt regarding foxhunting (below) was written by Carter Lee in describing his vacation from boarding school possibly a year or two before the Lees’ departure from Stratford in winter 1810-11.
But the greatest joy of the year to me was my Xmas visit to Stratford where, as I went but once a year, and the ride on horseback, a long & cold one, I was kept about six weeks, twice the time of the popular holiday. I well remember that my joy at the first sight of the house was so vivid & elating, that I could scarcely refrain from jumping from my horse, to run to it as if I could accomplish the distance of about three miles quicker without my horse than with him. And then the joyful crowd at the door, of all colours & from age to infancy! O life thou art indeed a blessed system of compensations, among which are those we find in the joys of meeting for the pains of separation!
And I had now become strong & active enough to partake, to some extent, of the pleasure of foxhunting, of which my brother Henry was passionately fond, & I delighted in the hounds, & was especially proud of their superiority to the packs of those of other gentlemen in the neighbourhood. They once, in a grand hunting match, were lucky enough to start a red instead of the more common & artful dodger, the grey fox & the long stretches of this larger Reynard, gave a fine chance for the rival pack to try their speed; when brother Henry’s ran the others out of hearing & he & his hounds were returning with their dead fox, when they met the distant packs in full cry after the game already bagged. O how much more proudly after that did we pet Hotspur & Stormer & Dido & Clio & the rest, whose feeding and management were as well attended to as that of Bonaparte & Fresco, my father’s and brother’s riding horses.
So, from Carter Lee’s account, we know the names of the foxhounds as well as those of the Lees’ horses. Bonaparte was likely “Light Horse Harry’s” riding horse, since he particularly admired Napoleon and passed his admiration to his son Henry IV, who published a volume on the life of Napoleon after he left America for France.