William Fitzhugh

[4] He established "Bedford" plantation as his family's seat (which was later destroyed in the Civil War)[5] and by the time he died in 1701, owned 54,000 acres (220 km2) mostly in the Northern Neck of Virginia, most of which this man inherited.

[6] Henry Fitzhugh's eldest daughter could not inherit land by primogeniture, but married Benjamin Grymes of Spotsylvania County, who served in the House of Burgesses as did their descendants in the Virginia General Assembly.

[9] This Randolph connection made Ann Fitzhugh cousin to Thomas Jefferson, who visited their home in Fredericksburg.

He built Chatham Manor on property in Stafford County across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and completed it in 1771 after three years of construction.

The Fitzhughs lived a lavish life there that included experimental farming, and his special passions of horse breeding and racing.

[10] After the Revolutionary War, as the economy floundered, Fitzhugh sold Chatham Manor and 1,288 acres (5.21 km2) to Churchill Jones for $20,000.

[14] After the new U.S. Congress decided to move the national capital to land donated by Virginia and Maryland along the Potomac River to become the new federal city (soon Washington, D.C.), Fitzhugh moved his main residence northward from near Fredericksburg to Alexandria, across from the new federal buildings (but part of the District of Columbia from 1790 until decades after Fitzhugh's death).

[16] About 1799, William Fitzhugh bought the house at 607 Oronoco Street, Alexandria, Virginia, which is now usually known as "The Boyhood Home of Robert E.

[19] Somewhat ironically, Fitzhugh served and then succeeded his distant cousin, Charles Carter, who had previously represented King George County in the House of Burgesses (as had his father of the same name, but who had been disinherited for his excessive spending, won a court case in order to acquire then resell that inherited property, and used the proceeds and loans from Speaker John Robinson in order to move from King George to Stafford County, which that Charles Carter represented before, during and after the American Revolutionary War while also incurring additional personal financial problems.

Meanwhile, beginning in 1781 through 1785, voters in Westmoreland, Stafford, and King George Counties elected and re-elected Fitzhugh to the state Senate.

He was initially buried at Ravensworth, which his son William Henry Fitzhugh inherited, but when the mansion was destroyed, his remains and gravestone were moved to historic Pohick Church cemetery in Lorton.

Coat of arms of William Fitzhugh
Chatham Manor , 120 Chatham Lane, Fredericksburg, originally built by William Fitzhugh, 1768–1771, restored, with changes, by Oliver H. Clark for Daniel Bradford Devore , from 1920. Landscape: Ellen Biddle Shipman, from 1922. David Hanlon, gardener
Fitzhugh graves at Pohick Church; William's is on the extreme left.