Colonel Lyle, Harper
disposed of it to William Hodgson of Whitehaven, England, in 1790. Now
our story of the Hodgson tenure must leave Alexandria to combine for a
brief moment with the great house of Lee.

[Illustration: The front room: The excellent Adam mantel from the Jonah
Thompson House is an improvement to replace a later one with a Latrobe
stove]

Among the famous sons of the sire of Stratford Hall (Westmoreland
County, Virginia), Thomas Lee, and his wife Hannah Ludwell, was William
Lee, who was born in 1739. He went to England about 1766 as a Virginia
merchant selling tobacco and acting as London agent for his Virginia
clients. In London in 1769, William Lee married his cousin, Hannah
Phillipi Ludwell (daughter of Philip Ludwell and Frances Grymes of Green
Spring).

William Lee took an active interest in politics and was elected as an
alderman of London in 1774. This did not prevent him from doing all in
his power to aid the American colonists. We find him going to Paris in
April 1777 as commercial agent for the Continental Congress and working
with his brother, Arthur Lee, on various diplomatic missions. While
serving at The Hague he was ordered to the courts of Berlin and Vienna,
but his services were thought to be so valuable it was decided to leave
him in Holland. Arthur Lee was sent on to Berlin in his place, but
later William Lee was appointed to the Austrian capital.

[Illustration: 200 block of Prince Street. The Old Dominion Bank and the
houses of George William Fairfax, Dr. James Craik and Dr. Elisha Cullen
Dick]

The four children of William and Hannah Phillipi Lee were born abroad.
The first child, William Ludwell (1775-1803) was born in London; Portia
(1777-1840) either in London or at The Hague; Brutus (1778-1779) at The
Hague; and Cornelia (1780-1815) at Brussels. William Lee remained abroad
until 1783, when he returned to his plantation, Green Spring, near
Williamsburg. Peace had not then been concluded and he had such
difficulty in obtaining passage for himself and family to Virginia that
he was forced to purchase a ship for the voyage. The Lees set sail from
Ostend on June 30, arriving home September 25.[97]

While living in London William Lee was thrown into contact with William
Hodgson, formerly of Whitehaven. This gentleman was an "active friend"
of America, a "fire-eating radical," and a member of "The Honest Whigs,"
a supper club of which Benjamin Franklin was a member, and the
"p