Thomas Lawrason died on June 7, 1819, before he could enjoy his fine, new home, leaving Elizabeth to struggle with a house and family. She never remarried, remaining in Alexandria until her children were reared and settled in life. Then she followed her youngest son, George Carson Lawrason, to New Orleans. An entry in the family Bible reads: "Elizabeth Lawrason, consort of Thomas Lawrason died at the residence of her son George C. Lawrason in New Orleans on the 11th of April, 1851, aged 59 years." A curious and sad sequel to her death is that some years later her grave was washed away and swallowed by the Mississippi. When General Lee's body lay in state at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) her grandson, Samuel McCutcheon Lawrason, then a student at Virginia Military Institute, was one of the bodyguards at the bier. [Illustration: The rear parlor. These rooms are spacious and well proportioned, the woodwork in style of McIntire after Adam is worthy of the master builders] The original portraits of Elizabeth and Thomas hang in the Lawrasons' Louisiana plantation home at St. Francisville. Some of the family silver, made in Alexandria by I. Adam, belongs to her granddaughter, Mrs. Kirkpatrick. The La Fayette-Lawrason association rightfully includes the name Cazenove to commemorate the role played by Alexandria's noble French-speaking citizen on the happy occasion of La Fayette's visit. Really his name was De Cazenove for his family was both Huguenot and noble. They had fled France in 1688 and settled in Geneva, Switzerland, where they were prominent bankers for over one hundred years. When the French Revolution broke out, the radical Swiss threw the French aristocrats into jail; then, becoming frightened at their tyranny, they released the patricians. Among those incarcerated were the De Cazenove family. After their release Antoine Charles de Cazenove and his elder brother were sent by their parents to America to avoid the Revolution. They landed in Philadelphia and were the guests of some cousins there by the same name. The two brothers married sisters, the Misses Hogan of Philadelphia. Later, the elder brother returned to Geneva. Antoine Charles Cazenove (for by this time our young Frenchman had become imbued with the spirit of republicanism and dropped the De as un-American), moved to Alexandria about 1794 and founded the banking house of Cazenove & Company. Head of a large shipping business, he maintained his own wharf and warehouses; was French consul; one of the founders of the Alexandria Water Company and of the cotton factory; and an active member of the old Presbyterian Church. He owned three or four black slaves who spoke only French. During the yellow fever epidemic in 1803, when forty to fifty people were dying in a day, Cazenove refused to leave Alexandria. He contracted yellow fever and was one of the few persons to have the disease and survive.