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Stratford Hall

Grand Homes & Gardens 2026

Thursday, March 12 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The second program in the 2026 Grand Homes and Gardens series, Freedom at Home: Telling the Full Story of America’s Founding Homes & Gardens, featuring Stratford Hall in Stratford, Virginia with speaker Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey, Director of Research and the Jessie Ball duPont Memorial Library.

Stratford Hall, located in Stratford, VA, was the boyhood home of two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee, and Francis Lightfoot Lee. It was also the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States during the Civil War. 

Four generations of the Lee family inhabited Stratford as did hundreds of enslaved Africans and African Americans who lived and labored at the plantation. Construction of the site’s Georgian Great House was completed in the 1740s. At that time, an estimated 200 enslaved people were living at Stratford and surrounding properties owned by Thomas Lee, father to Declaration signers Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot Lee. 

Today, Stratford Hall stands as a model of Georgian architecture, standing almost entirely as it did in the 1740s. The site interprets the lives of the politically active Lee family. Extensive research, archaeological work, and engagement with descendant communities is ongoing to tell the stories of the people enslaved at Stratford.

About the Speaker

Born in Virginia and reared in the Brushy Mountains of North Carolina, Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey earned his undergraduate degree from Saint Olaf College, and graduate degrees from Yale University and the University of Virginia. He joined Stratford Hall in November 2022 after nearly 20 years of teaching at Randolph College (formerly Randolph Macon Woman’s College) in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he held an endowed chair in Comparative Philosophy. There Dr. Steffey won the top prize in undergraduate teaching from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges. His publications on a wide range of topics, from climate denialism to the politics of anger, may be found in recognized international journals.

At Stratford Hall, Dr. Steffey is the Vice President of Research & Collections, and the Director of the Jessie Ball duPont Memorial Library. His role is to preserve and to produce knowledge about the multiple generations and communities who called Stratford home and to highlight their incredible contributions to the founding of our country. He is currently under contract for a book on Stratford Hall, another on Arthur Lee, and he may be heard monthly on the 18th-century podcast Stratford Mail.

For Morven Members

Please note that you must login into your Morven Member account in the upper righthand corner of the registration page in order to access the member rate.

Series Schedule

All programs begin at 6:30 p.m. Doors will open at 6:00 p.m. for light refreshments. The programs are hybrid, offered both in-person and virtually. Upon registration, a Zoom link will be sent to virtual participants. All programs will be recorded and shared with registrants following each event.

In an 1804 newspaper advertisement, Trenton clock and watchmaker William J. Leslie touted that he was “Not from Paris, London or Boston – But a Native of New-Jersey.”  At the time, the state was home to dozens of craftsmen specializing in tall case clocks. Morven’s newest exhibition will examine the work of New Jersey clockmakers as they collaborated with cabinetmakers, ran shops, and formed professional partnerships to create beautiful timekeeping pieces.

Spanning the colonial and post-revolutionary period, clockmakers ran their shops with the assistance of apprentices and often enslaved labor. Some carried on the clockmaking tradition through several generations, often working multiple trades, including silversmithing.

This exhibition will feature over 50 tall case clocks, representing almost as many different clockmakers, from both private and public collections. These freestanding pendulum clocks are as functional as they are beautiful with faces made of intricate brass work or painted designs of objects like ships, suns, and moons. Internally, their complicated workings are mechanical masterpieces. Some even chime with contemporaneous melodies. 

Striking Beauty will be the first large-scale exhibition of its kind, exploring the experiences of the artisans and apprentices, free and enslaved, who contributed to this unique craft. Explore the five-gallery exhibition to see clocks from cities and towns such as Elizabeth, Newark, Burlington, Flemington, and Salem, and more. 

Lenders to the exhibition will include: Boxwood Hall, Brown University, Buccleuch Mansion Museum, Burlington County Historical Society, Gloucester County Historical Society, Hunterdon County Historical Society, Monmouth County Historical Association, Trenton Museum Society,  as well as loans from numerous private collections.