607
Oronoco Street

The house at 607 Oronoco Street was built around 1795 by John Potts, a merchant. It changed hands several times before being leased to Anne Carter Lee Person Anne Carter Lee b. 1773 · d. 1829 Mother of Robert E. Lee. After her husband's financial ruin and departure for the West Indies, she moved her children to rented quarters in Alexandria, where Robert spent his … around 1812 ^[1] Source 1 Powell, History of Old Alexandria, 1928 Book . After her husband Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee’s financial ruin and departure for the West Indies, Anne Lee moved the family here from Stratford Hall and raised the five surviving Lee children in the house and at a nearby house at 611 Cameron Street.

Robert E. Lee Person Robert E. Lee b. 1807 · d. 1870 United States Army officer who spent much of his childhood in Alexandria at the house on Oronoco Street before his West Point appointment, and who later commanded Confederate … lived here from early childhood until his appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1825 ^[2] Source 2 Miller, Artisans and Merchants, 1991 Book . He returned to the house in 1827 on his first furlough from West Point and visited periodically in later years. Other Lee children also lived here for varying periods; the household included a small number of enslaved persons.

The house was a private residence through the twentieth century, operated briefly as a Lee-focused house museum from 1967 to 2000, and reverted to private ownership thereafter. A plaque at the front step records the Lee family’s residence ^[3] Source 3 HABS Alexandria survey Government record . Any treatment of the house’s history documents the family’s factual presence without claiming the site for any particular later interpretation of Lee’s career.