".... Officers were elected--John Heath as President, Richard Booker as Treasurer, and Thomas Smith as Clerk, the society esteeming them as necessary persons for the functions of their several duties accordingly selected them."

These young gentlemen were students of William and Mary College. The Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern is believed to be the birthplace of the distinguished Phi Beta Kappa Society.

John Heath was a native of Northumberland County. Heathsville, the county seat, was named for his family.

John Heath owned an estate called Black Point, on the outskirts of Heathsville. Black Point was later known as Springfield.

_LIGHT-HORSE HARRY_

He rode into battle fast--with his sabre drawn and his three hundred screaming troopers following close behind. Under him was his own horse which he had ridden north from Virginia, one of those "fleet steeds" for which his home country was noted. From his tall leather helmet the horse-hair plumes streamed out behind and his jacket was a blur of green.

His white lambskin breeches and knee-high boots were perfection. His troopers were brilliant and shining--that was because Henry Lee would have his Virginians no other way. His detachment of cavalry stood out like a torch amid the ragged forces of Washington's army.

Henry Lee, lately graduated from Princeton, had been nominated by Patrick Henry in 1776, to command a cavalry company raised in Virginia for service in the Continental Army, under the command of Colonel Bland.

In 1777, Lee's Corps was placed under Washington's immediate control. It was the "flower of Washington's troop."

In Harry Lee's "flying detachment" there was one who was a neighbor of his back in Northern Virginia, John Marshall.

Light-Horse Harry Lee received his nickname because his outfit traveled light. He never had more than three hundred men and they were as lightly equipped as possible. Speed was necessary if they were to survive, for to them fell the hard and dangerous assignments.

It fell to them to spy on the enemy's movements, to harass them, to destroy them and capture their supplies. They hunted for food for Washington's hungry army. Their jobs were the lonesome ones, carried out in the still of the night, while Death stalked them--waiting for them to make just one sound, one slip, one mistake. But Light-Horse Harry and his men were like foxes, and Luck traveled with them.

General Washington was fond of Harry; he remembered him as a blond child who had come with his father and mother on neighborly visits to Mt.

Vernon. He invited Harry to become one of his aides.

It was a tempting offer. Washington had been Harry's hero since childhood days and this was an opportunity to be near him. After a struggle with this great temptation, Harry won and sent his answer to General Washington: "I am wedded to my sword."

In 1779, Light-Horse Harry decided to do the impossible. He and his men would capture Paulus (Powles) Hook, a fort occupied by the British on a point of land on the west side of the Hudson, opposite the town of New York. The enemy had made the Hook an island by digging a deep ditch through which the river flowed. It was strongly guarded on all sides by British ships, troops or natural defenses.

For three weeks Harry's scouting expedition had been watching the enemy, moving among the ravines, hills and marshes, always in close touch with the British. In this detachment of Lee's was Captain John Marshall.

Lee laid his plans before General Washington, who approved, and made sure that there were lines of retreat.

On a hot day in August Light-Horse Harry and his men started on the adventure. It was rough going--a long march through marsh land that was doubtless swarming with mosquitoes. They had to make bridges in some places and at other places they waded or swam. They sank deep into the marshes.

On the night of August the eighteenth they crept among the hills and passed the main body of the British army, who were sleeping. At three o'clock in the morning they crossed the ditch. From then on it was a fast movement resulting in the capture of one hundred and fifty-nine prisoners, which was all except a few men in the blockhouse.

After the enemy's stores and supplies had been destroyed Light-Horse Harry and his men returned to Headquarters with their captives.

For this daring feat Lee received compliments from both Washington and Lafayette. But his glory was not to last long. Some of the older officers preferred charges against him for his conduct of the campaign.

He was court-martialed, but exonerated from the charges, and Congress soon gave him a gold medal.

But the happiness of it all had fled from the heart of Henry Lee. He had fought four years with Washington in the North. Now he went South and joined General Greene for the remainder of the war. His fame continued to increase. Tradition says that he planned the final strategy at Yorktown.

At the surrender Light-Horse Harry stood in the line of officers as the British army marched out and Cornwallis surrendered his sword to General Washington. Lee was dressed in his usual brilliant perfection with his hair powdered and queued in the back, but in his heart he felt old and sad. At twenty-six he felt so old that he wanted to withdraw from the world and sink into obscurity.

After the war was over Light-Horse Harry turned his horse toward home.

That was where he wanted to go--home to Leesylvania on the Potomac.

_A BAND OF BROTHERS_

King Carter once wrote: "Pray God send in the next generation ... a set of better-polished patriots."

An example of the kind of "polished patriots" that King Carter probably had in mind were the Lee brothers of Stratford: Thomas Ludwell, Richard Henry, Francis Lightfoot, William and Arthur. They were the sons of Thomas and Hannah Lee, and they were all born in the same southeast bedroom at Stratford.

Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot were signers of the Declaration of Independence. All five brothers worked in various ways to win freedom from Great Britain for the colonies in America and to shape a government that would stand.

President John Adams described the Lee sons of Stratford as "that band of brothers, intrepid and unchangeable, who, like the Greeks at Thermopylae, stood in the gap, in defense of their country, from the first glimmering of the Revolution in the horizon, through all its rising light, to its perfect day."

_THE DIVINE MATILDA_

Light-horse Harry Lee soon tired of his isolation and decided one day to ride down to Stratford and call on the family of his cousin. It was a long ride, but Virginians of that day thought nothing of traveling long distances on horseback.

Thomas Lee had left Stratford to his oldest son, Philip Ludwell, who had lived there in great style. In his stables were a score or more of blooded horses, including the imported stallion Dotterel, which was said to be the "swiftest horse in all England (Eclipse excepted)." His imported coaches were the finest that could be had.

Philip had kept an open house, as Harry Lee well remembered, and he had entertained on a lavish scale. A whole ox could be roasted for guests in the kitchen fireplace. He had kept a band of musicians to whose airs his daughters, Matilda and Flora, with their companions danced in the Great Hall. But Philip Ludwell was now dead, Harry had heard, and Stratford had passed on to his oldest child, Matilda.

As Harry came up the oak and poplar lined road to Stratford, Matilda and Flora recognized him "as he rode past the grove of maples" and they "welcomed him with joy."

Flora was described by a contemporary as being haughty in manner, "very genteel and wears monstrous bustles." In describing Matilda the only word used by her contemporaries was "divine."

Harry was not prepared for this new Matilda. When he had last seen her she was at the awkward age of thirteen. Now she was nineteen and his first sight of her took his breath away.

There was tea-drinking in the garden with laughter and talk of the good old times before the war. Perhaps Matilda and Harry walked in the garden and "sat under a butiful shade tree" or climbed to one of the summer-houses on the roof from which they could see "Potomac's sea-like billows."

In less than a month Matilda was married to her cousin, Light-Horse Harry Lee. And what was Matilda like? There are no portraits or miniatures to tell us how she looked, no letters to unlock her personality. Only the word "divine" bequeathed by her contempories.

Matilda was expensive. Inventories tell us that her side-saddle cost 1,200 pounds of tobacco, and music lessons on the harpsichord cost 3,043 pounds of tobacco. "1 pc. fine Chintz in Pocket Money for Mis Matilda,"

whatever that meant, was 1,500 pounds, and another ninety pounds of tobacco went for dental care. Listed among her belongings were a cap, a pair of silk shoes and stays for her slender waist.

Matilda could afford to have expensive tastes. She had inherited Stratford and its six thousand acres of rich tobacco soil, with enough slaves to tend it, and other lands scattered all over northern Virginia.

Harry took Matilda to New York where for three years he represented Virginia in Congress. They were gay and happy years, but it was over all too soon.

When Matilda died, Harry wrote: "Something always happens to mar my happiness."

At the foot of the garden at Stratford, Harry built a vault for Thomas Lee's granddaughter, Matilda, who was called "divine."

Matilda was twenty-six years old when she died. She left three children, Philip Ludwell, Lucy Grymes and Henry.

_MADAM WASHINGTON_

Augustine Washington had left his wife, Mary: "the current crops on three plantations and the right of working Bridges Creek Quarter for five years, during which time she could establish a quarter on Deep Run."