Transcription
"Col. Henry Lee lies in an unmarked grave on Free stone Point, much to the shame of Dumfries and Prince William County," Dr. Melvin Lee Steadman told Dumfries residents Thursday.
The place was the Dumfries courthouse site, the occasion the bicentennial of the town's pre Revolutionary adoption of the Prince William Resolves.
Women in white summer dresses, school children and men in suits wearing straw hats arrived on foot and flocked around a stand where Steadman spoke.
Town police directed traffic, and as more people arrived the affair took on the air of a small country gathering.
Steadman, a historian descended from George Mason, author of the Resolves, spoke of local men connected with the Resolves.
Among the names was Col. Henry Lee, grandfather of Robert E. Lee and father of Richard Henry Lee who sponsored earlier and similar resolves as a Virginia member of the House of Burgess.
"Col. Lee gathered and equipped troops destined to serve George Washington's army. He was Washington's friend and a trustee of Dumfries. In 1761 he helped plan the town's enlargement," Steadman said, "Dumfries really should do something to mark his grave."
The Prince William Resolves, hastily written by George Mason after Lord Dunmore dissolved the House of Burgesses in 1774, were read aloud by Mrs. Robert George, regent of the Elizabeth McIntosh Hammill Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Festivities were topped off by Supervisor Chairman Charles Colgan's unveiling of an historicTranslator
Rachel Hughes