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Chatham Manor is the Georgian-style home completed in 1771 by farmer and statesman William Fitzhugh, after about 3 years of construction, on the Rappahannock River in Stafford County, Virginia, opposite Fredericksburg. It was for more than a century the center of a large, thriving plantation, and one of the few locations visited both by President George Washington and later President Abraham Lincoln. Chatham also reflected the new country's racial tensions. In January 1805, Chatham's slaves overpowered and whipped their overseer and assistants in a minor slave rebellion. An armed posse of white men quickly gathered. They killed one slave in the attack, and two more died trying to escape capture. Two other slaves were deported, likely to the Caribbean or Louisiana, and Fitzhugh soon sold the property. Five decades later, in 1857, owner Hannah Jones Coalter (the 77 year old mother of a disabled daughter named Janet), died and attempted to manumit her 93 slaves after making provision both for her daughter and them. Her relatives sued, claiming that after the Dred Scott decision, slaves were legally incapable of choosing whether to remain enslaved or receive their freedom and enough money to establish themselves in another state. While local judges thought the executors should free the slaves per Hannah's intent, a divided Virginia Supreme Court disagreed. Thus, the executors sold Chatham with its slaves to J. Horace Lacy (husband of Hannah's much younger half-sister Betty), although soon one slave was allowed to travel to raise money to buy freedom for herself and her small family, and succeeded. During the American Civil War, the Lacys abandoned Chatham, and ultimately sold it to pay taxes (including on their other estate, Ellwood Manor) in 1872. Its strategic site overlooking Fredericksburg briefly served as Union headquarters, and later as the major Union hospital during battles for control of the strategic Virginia city and Spotsylvania county en route to the Confederate capital. Due to wartime use and disuse, Chatham fell into great disrepair. Saved from total destruction as the 20th Century began by Virginians who had earned fortunes in the North, Chatham was refurbished and became a showpiece. Willed to the National Park Service in 1975, the estate now serves as the headquarters for the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. ==Antebellum== Wealthy lawyer and planter William Fitzhugh built the main house at Chatham over three-years ending in 1771. He was a friend and colleague of George Washington, whose family's farm was just down the Rappahannock River from Chatham. Washington's diaries note that he was a frequent guest at Chatham. He and Fitzhugh had served together in the House of Burgesses prior to the American Revolution, and shared a love of farming and horses. Fitzhugh's daughter, Mary Lee, would marry the first president's step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. Their daughter wed the future Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The plantation included an orchard, mill, and a race track where Fitzhugh's horses vied with those of other planters for prize money. Fizhugh named the mansion after the British parliamentarian William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who championed many of the opinions held by American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War.〔(Copied from "Chatham Manor" ), National Park Service, accessed 11 Apr 2009〕 Flanking the main house were dozens of supporting structures: slave quarters, a dairy, ice house, barns, stables. Down on the river were fish traps. Fitzhugh sold the Chatham plantation to Major Churchill Jones, who had served under Col. William Washington and Gen. Light Horse Harry Lee. The elderly Fitzhugh then moved to a city house in Alexandria, Virginia. Jones was a member of the Society of the Cincinati, and greatly improved the estate: adding terraces down to the Rappahannock River, as well as began constructing the first bridge across that river to Fredericksburg (it took a year and half to build and but washed away in the flood of 1826, slightly more than three years after Churchill Jones died). Churchill's brother William Jones had long owned an estate, Ellwood Plantation, in Spottsyvlania County, and inherited Chatham around the time his wife of 40 years had died. Hannah Jones Coalter was William's daughter by his first wife, and after her first husband died, she married three-time widower (and Virginia Court of Appeals judge John Coalter (1771-1838)) in 1825 and received the deed to Chatham as their wedding present. Meanwhile, the 78 year old William Jones then remarried, to Lucy Gordon, his late wife's niece. Their 18 year marriage produced a daughter, Betty Churchill Jones, who in 1848 married her former tutor, James Horace Lacy of Mississippi, son of a Presbyterian minister.〔Jerrilyn Eby, They Called Stafford Home: The Development of Stafford County, Virginia from 1600 until 1865 (Heritage Books Inc. pp. 280-281)〕 Chatham remained known for its hospitality: Thomas Jefferson,James Monroe and William Henry Harrison often visited Chatham, as later did Washington Irving. (A 1792 note recently discovered among Jefferson's papers being catalogued at Princeton University; includes Jefferson's annotation, "...stopped at friend Fitzhugh's in Fredericksburg..." He appeared to have been traveling between the new Capital City in Philadelphia and Monticello.) Hannah survived her last husband by nearly two decades, as did her disabled daughter Janet. The wealthy widow attempted to provide for her daughter's care, as well as free her household's administrator, Charles, and 92 other slaves in her will. However, the Virginia Constitution of 1851 (and earlier Virginia laws) required manumitted slaves to leave the state within a year, so (as had none other than the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall for one slave), Hannah gave her each of slaves (other than Charles, who was freed outright) the choice of remaining enslaved in Virginia (but choosing their mistresses/masters) or manumission and a small stake to enable them to support themselves in another state or country. Her estate other than the slaves was valued at $15000 to $20,000, so they could be provided for. However, her executor (presumably emboldened by Betty and her husband) sought court instruction as to their duties. While the local Stafford court thought the slaves should be freed, the Virginia Supreme Court disagreed. In 'Williamson v. Coalter,' 14 Gratton 394 (1858), a majority of three justices refused to uphold Hannah's testamentary wishes, although she had revised the will shortly before she died in order to circumvent another recent decision refusing to uphold manumissions (Bailey v. Poindexter's executor). Her neighbor Justice Richard C.L. Moncure dissented vehemently, joined by Justice Samuels, who died shortly thereafter.〔http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~elacey/chatham.htm〕 So Lacy bought Chatham for about $35,000, but as discussed below, ultimately sold it in 1872 to a Pennsylvania banker for $23,900.〔Eby at 283〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chatham Manor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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