Our Favorite Sons
George Washington
(1732-1799)
George Washington was influential not only in the birth and growth of the nation, but of Alexandria as well. In 1743, Washington went to live with his half-brother Lawrence, who owned Mount Vernon. Through Lawrence and his wife, Ann Fairfax of Belvoir, George became acquainted with the influential Fairfax family, who ushered him into the highest levels of Colonial society.
In July 1774, George Washington presided over a meeting in Alexandria to elect delegates to the first Virginia Convention and to protest the new taxes levied by the British Parliament. The Fairfax Resolves, written by Washington's close friend and neighbor, George Mason of Gunston Hall, were adopted at this meeting and later presented to the Convention in Williamsburg by Washington.
After leading the Colonial army to victory in the Revolutionary War, Washington resigned his commission and returned home to Martha at Mount Vernon. His days as a quiet gentleman farmer were few, however, as he was chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Following the convention, Washington was elected the nation's first president, serving two terms before resigning.
Throughout his life, Washington was a constant in Alexandria, where he owned property, worshiped at Christ Church, and attended social gatherings at Gadsby's Tavern.
Robert E. Lee
(1807-1870)
When Robert E. Lee was only four, his father, "Light Horse Harry" Lee, moved the family to Alexandria. Seven years later, the elder Lee died and Robert's mother moved the family across the street from the Lee-Fendall House, a homestead to the "Lees of Virginia."
Although Lee had aspired to a career in medicine, he chose to enter West Point which offered him a free education. In 1831, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha Washington.
An able officer, Lee served with distinction in the Mexican War. As the dark clouds of civil war approached and Southern states began seceding, Lee, ever faithful to Virginia, sadly resigned his U.S. Army commission and offered his services to the new Confederate government in Richmond.
Although initially appointed to a staff position, Lee took field command in 1862. From that day forward, the fate and career of Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia would be forever intertwined. After four years of struggle and hardship, Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.
From the surrender at Appomattox until the day he died, Lee continued to be a witness for honor and a quiet voice for reconciliation and peace within the Union.
