I
LANGLEY AND THE LEES
The brick house known as Salona stands solidly on a portion of the original grant known as "Langley," a tract named by Thomas Lee for ancestral Lee lands in Shropshire, England.
Thomas Lee was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1690, the fifth son of Richard Lee, II, a member of the King's Council and Naval Officer and Receiver of Customs for the Potomac. When Richard died in 1714, young Thomas succeeded his father as Naval Officer for the Potomac. Three years earlier, in 1711, he had been appointed resident agent along with his uncle, Edmund Jenings, for Lady Catherine Fairfax. She was proprietor of the Northern Neck grant of over 5,000,000 acres of land originally made by Charles II in exile to seven loyal followers, in 1649. She had become dissatisfied with the management of her agents Micajah Perry and Robert Carter. While his uncle was in England, Thomas Lee kept the books for the proprietary and visited most of the farflung Fairfax property. After his uncle returned to Virginia and took over the books, Lee used the knowledge gained from his work with the Fairfax estate to acquire grants of his own, among them, in 1719, the Langley tract of 2,862 acres on the Potomac River between Great Falls and Little Falls. Because of the strategic location of this tract, he hoped to benefit from the economic development of the western lands. While he never realized this dream, he did become president of the King's Council and, in 1749, acting governor of the Colony. [1]
After Thomas Lee's death in 1750, the Langley property went to his eldest son, Philip Ludwell Lee, who also was a member of the King's Council. A Royalist by preference he did not share the revolutionary enthusiasms of his younger brothers, Richard Henry Lee, and Francis Lightfoot Lee, signers of the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, Philip Ludwell Lee, as administrator of his father's estate, was responsible for paying their legacies to the younger children. These legacies were never paid in full, an omission which further widened the gap between him and his siblings. [2] In the tradition of his father who had envisioned development of the upper Potomac, Philip Ludwell Lee established the Town of Philee on 100 acres at the Little Falls of the Potomac. Although he actually built warehouses there, the town was doomed to failure. [3]
Philip Ludwell Lee died in 1775, and the Langley tract was divided between his two daughters: Matilda, who married Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee, and Flora, who married Ludwell Lee of Belmont in Loudoun County. Matilda inherited the portion on which Salona was built. If any buildings existed on the tract at that time, it seems probable that Matilda, as the elder daughter, would have been given the section on which they were located. [4]
By an ironic twist of fate, in 1782, Matilda Lee, daughter of die-hard Royalist Philip Ludwell Lee, married Henry Lee, a dashing young officer in the American forces, whose brilliant military exploits at Brandywine, Monmouth, and Paulus Hook (now Jersey City) won him the esteem of General George Washington, the soubriquet of "Light Horse Harry," and, in 1780, promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
"Harry" Lee was the son of Henry Lee of Leesylvania, in Prince William County, and Lucy Grymes Lee. His father was a member of the House of Burgesses for many years and when the war with England began, was in charge of recruiting and equipping troops for Washington's army. After serving as a delegate to the Continental Congress of 1785-88 and the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1788, he was elected to the Virginia Legislature where he served until 1791. His wife, Matilda, died in 1790, leaving him a son, Henry. Matilda left the Langley tract to her son, with a life interest to her husband. [5]
Thomas Lee's 1719 grant, adjoining Turberville, showing the future 208-acre Smoot property at Salona.