The Kitchen

The Kitchen

Pennsylvanian John Potts, Jr., contrary to Southern practice, made the kitchen an integral part of the house. He also provided it with the finest in cooking equipment when building it in 1795.

Steel engravings of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson look down from above the fireplace. To the right is an iron cased oven imported from England by Potts. This original equipment was in its time the latest in cooking luxury.

Potts came to Alexandria for the Potomac Canal, a project in which Light-Horse Harry was also deeply involved. Lee planned a great city at the falls of the Potomac to be named Matildaville for his late first wife Matilda Lee of Stratford Hall. This and other ill-fated land speculations led to Lee's financial ruin and debtor's prison in 1810. Lee was still at Stratford Hall, however, when Robert E. Lee was born there to his second wife, Ann Hill Carter, January 19, 1807.

Note: For another view of the kitchen, from our Home Page click Related Sites/Robert E. Lee's Alexandria.