When peace came in 1783, Captain John Harper, whose real-estate plans had been deferred by hostilities, began the division of his Fairfax property into building lots. At amazing speed and increasing prices he sold off what had formerly been gardens and orchards, and as soon as George William Fairfax's house was vacated by 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.
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.
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 "presiding genius." Hodgson, also a member of the Royal Society, then composed of the intellectuals of the day—the premier scientific society of the English world—rendered valuable aid to the American commissioners in Paris by correspondence with Franklin in which he passed on much useful information.
An enthusiastically outspoken recalcitrant, Hodgson was not content with his contribution to the American cause, but took up the cudgels for the French, and was promptly launched into very hot water. Two years in Newgate prison followed his hearty toast "The French Republic," and the epithet he applied to His Majesty, George III, of "German Hogbutcher."[98] After this experience, it is not surprising that Hodgson removed himself beyond the seas. He turns up at dinner at Mount Vernon in June 1788. Two years later we find him buying a house and lot for £1,650 from John Harper on Prince Street. The evidence is that he was already in this house as a tenant. Here he set up in the dry-goods business, using the first floor for his store and countinghouse, and the upper part as his dwelling.