Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia): Delivered in the House of Representatives and in the Senate,; Fifty-Second Congress, First SessionVarious
History
Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia): Delivered in the House of Representatives and in the Senate,; Fifty-Second Congress, First Session
Various
Lee, William Henry Fitzhugh, 1837-1891
At both these places he cultivated his broad acres and interested
himself in all matters relating to agricultural progress and
development. He advanced and promoted these interests as president of
the Virginia State Agricultural Society. He represented his county for a
term in the State senate, but declined a reelection, and returned to his
plantation and the enjoyment of home life. After a few years of quiet he
was called, in 1886, to a new field of activity by neighbors and
political friends, who desired his services at the national capital, and
he became the Representative from the Alexandria district in the
Fiftieth Congress, and he was in his third term, when, on the 15th day
of October, 1891, the hand of death removed him from his career of
usefulness. For weeks his strong constitution and vigorous frame had
resisted disease in his Ravensworth home. All that kindness and skill
could suggest was done in his behalf, but skill and kindness were of no
avail, and he bade adieu to home and family, companions and associates,
earthly duties and surroundings, and entered upon his eternal rest. His
mortal life was closed.
I well remember a day spent in his company nearly four years ago, and
its occurrences gave me an opportunity to witness the regard in which he
was held by those among whom he had lived and to whom he was best known.
It was on Decoration Day, in a section of country where he had seen
service as a soldier, not far from where he had lived in his early
childhood. He was the orator of the occasion. Many of his old
companions in arms and members of their families were among his
audience, and they listened eagerly as he made appropriate reference to
the departed comrades who slept under the little hillocks near by them,
bright and fragrant with the flowers of early summer, which the loving
hands of woman and childhood had heaped upon them. As he descended from
the platform he was surrounded by old and young, who thronged about him
to shake his hand or give expression to a friendly greeting. Admiration
and affection were expressed upon their countenances for the brave man
before them, whose gallant deeds had been told at every fireside in the
country around, and who was loved and honored because, in addition to
his own merits and virtues, he represented the great leader whose name
was the embodiment of a precious memory.
I have portrayed WILLIAM HENRY FITZHUGH LEE as a student, a soldier, a
planter, a public man representing his people in the State legislature
and the National Congress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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