The grand houses created by 18th-century Virginians are a huge tourist draw, but what does their design tell us about the natures of the men who built them? The auhor "illuminates the fortunes, motivations, and aspirations of the welthy and powerful owners who built their 'homes' with the object of securing their status and impressing the public."
Among those included are the houses of Governor Alexander Spotswood, William Fitzhugh, the Lee family of Westmoreland, and Thomas Jefferson. Historians and students of architecture should enjoy this unusual approach to the time period.
Follow Marlborough Point Road down to the eastern tip of Stafford County, and you will pass by lots of new housing mushrooming into the forests and fields that were once favored by both the Native Americans and colonial settlers. This section of the county is home to not just centuries of local history but millennia.
The Central Rappahannock region produced many of the men who led the fight for independence and fashioned the new American nation. Some are remembered, and afforded their due. Some, like John Francis Mercer, are not remembered -- but should be….
