Tudor Place was purchased by Francis Lowndes, one of the prominent tobacco merchants and shippers, in 1794, from Thomas Beall of George who made a large addition to George Town in 1783, called by his name. Mr. Lowndes started to build a mansion, but in 1805 he sold the property to Thomas Peter and his wife, the former Martha Parke Custis. [Illustration: THOMAS PETER] When the Peters moved to their new home in George Town they used the western wing, already built, with its addition on the east, as their home, and the eastern wing was their carriage house and stable. This fact has been proved by finding below the floors the signs of the old stalls, and up in the rafters the corncobs of long ago. I have known people who remembered the old yellow coach which often stood out in the stable yard, and I've been told that if one dug deep enough its cobblestones would still be found. Mr. and Mrs. Peter decided to use the fortune left her by her grandmother, Mrs. Washington, to build a stately mansion. They certainly succeeded. They engaged as architect Dr. William Thornton, whose plans for the Capitol had been accepted in the second competition, as the first yielded none sufficiently good. Dr. Thornton and his wife were intimate friends of the Peters, and a beautiful miniature of him, done by her, is now in the possession of one of the family. Mrs. Thornton was with Mrs. Peter when the British soldiers set fire to the Capitol in 1814, and the two ladies sat at the window of what is now the dining room of Tudor Place--the low part between the main building and the western wing--and watched the conflagration. You can imagine their grief as one saw the work of her husband destroyed, and the other, the building which had been so much in the mind and heart of her revered grandfather. There is in existence a very lovely painting of Mrs. Peter at about the time of her marriage; a sweet, young girl with light curls, and the embodiment of daintiness. Suspended about her neck is, I think, the miniature which General Washington had painted for her as a wedding gift. When he asked her what she wanted she replied "a replica of himself." He was much pleased that a young girl would want a portrait of an old man! The photograph reproduced of Thomas Peter is from a portrait done by him by his son-in-law, Captain William G. Williams. While on a visit to Tudor Place occurred the death of Mrs. Peter's mother, the former Eleanor Calvert. She was fifty-three years old, and had borne twenty children. [Illustration: MRS. THOMAS PETER (MARTHA PARKE CUSTIS)] Mr. and Mrs. Peter had a family of eight children. Three of the daughters had striking names: America, Columbia, and Britannia.