614
Oronoco Street

Philip Richard Fendall, a Maryland-born attorney who had married into the Lee family, built the house at 614 Oronoco Street in 1785 on a lot he acquired from Henry Lee III (“Light-Horse Harry”), the father of 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 … ^[1] Source 1 Powell, History of Old Alexandria, 1928 Book . The house sits catty-corner across Oronoco Street from the Boyhood Home of Robert E. Lee, and the two dwellings together anchored the Lee family’s Alexandria presence for four generations.

The house passed through a succession of Lee family occupants and tenants over the nineteenth century; at various periods it was home to Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee himself, to members of his extended family, and to boarders. During the Civil War, Union authorities requisitioned it briefly as a hospital ^[2] Source 2 NARA Civil War records Government record . In 1937 the house was purchased by John L. Lewis, longtime president of the United Mine Workers of America, who lived there until his death in 1969 ^[3] Source 3 Alexandria Library Special Collections Manuscript .

The house has been operated since 1974 by the Lee-Fendall House Museum. Its archives include period furniture, Lewis-era papers, and documentation of enslaved people held in the household during its antebellum years.