
DATE: Sunday, May 25, 1997                  TAG: 9705270209

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR 

                                            LENGTH:  250 lines

OPEN HOUSE (AFTER 287 YEARS) PUBLIC CAN SEE CHELSEA, A COLONIAL MANSION THAT HAS BEEN HOST TO NATION'S EARLY LEADERS

A ``NEW'' OLD colonial mansion, Chelsea on the placid and pristine Mattaponi River in King William County, is opening its doors to the public, beginning in June, for the first time in its 287-year history.

Its history, and that of the land on which it sits between the Mattaponi and Pamunkey, is intertwined with some of the most illustrious names in Virginia's colonial and revolutionary past. It offers a glimpse into the tightly bound social, political and economic relationships of the colonial planter aristocracy.

This home of the well-connected Moore family was Gov. Alexander Spotswood's first stop on his 1716 trek from Williamsburg with his ``Knights of the Golden Horseshoe'' to the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond - certainly not the first adventure to that then-distant territory but certainly the most romanticized.

George Washington, whose family had property nearby, and Declaration of Independence signer Carter Braxton, a neighbor, both were frequent visitors. The Marquis de Lafayette made Chelsea the headquarters for his little Virginia army for about two weeks in August 1781, until he was certain that his British rival Cornwallis was truly digging himself into a hole in the trenches of Yorktown and Gloucester Point.

Robert E. Lee stopped by about a century later to admire the portraits on the wall - some of them his ancestors. When the Moores lived at Chelsea, the drawing room and library were hung with a fine collection of family portraits, some by Sir Godfrey Kneller, one by a Peale, but the majority by Charles Bridges, who visited to paint family members.

In the post-Civil War years, Gen. Lee had taken a new interest in his family history, although he always stressed that he was a ``poor'' genealogist. Lee is purported to have said, ``I can't leave these old Romans,'' when urged to into the hall where it would be cooler.

Augustine Moore (1685-1743), an immigrant from England, established his seat here about 1705 and called it Chelsea.

According to 19th century historian Charles Campbell, a Moore descendent, Augustine Moore was known as ``Old Grub Moore'' because of his having cleared so much new land. (Of course, he had a lot of help from slaves and indentured servants.) He was also called, to his face, Austin, as were most men of the time given the Christian name Augustine.

He became one of early colonial Virginia's most successful tobacco entrepreneurs, and about 1709, he completed the riverfront part of the manor house.

Two of Austin Moore's children made socially significant marriages. Son Bernard Moore (1716-1775) married Anne Katherine ``Kate'' Spotswood, eldest daughter of the by then ex-Gov. Spotswood and his wife, Anne Butler Bryan. Daughter Lucy became the second of three wives of John Robinson Jr. (1704-1766), who served nearly 30 years as both speaker of the House of Burgesses - he was more often called Speaker Robinson than John - and treasurer of Virginia.

Bernard Moore's close relationship with his brother-in-law, head of the colony's old guard, would lead to serious financial setbacks when the unexpected death of the speaker revealed the ``Scandal of the Century'' - a white-collar crime that in colonial Virginia was every bit as damaging and far-reaching as the savings and loan mess of the 1980s and '90s.

Bernard Moore inherited Chelsea and ultimately expanded the plantation holdings from the Mattaponi to the Pamunkey, encompassing about 8,600 acres. He continued as a tobacco entrepreneur and became deeply involved in land speculation, as did many of his fellow Virginia patricians.

In the first half of the 18th century, tobacco prices continued the downward spiral that had begun in the previous century. You have to wonder why they didn't give up on tobacco and plant something worthwhile.

No way. The Virginian's way was to acquire more land - and more slaves and indentured servants to work it - and plant more tobacco. This took money, of course.

Enter Speaker Robinson, Bernard's brother-in-law. To the speaker, a friend in need was a friend indeed; and a friend indebted to him would likely remain a friend.

In his dual role as treasurer, Robinson began loaning to many many friends and associates paper money for which his office was responsible. These loans were made in expired Virginia currency, which the treasurer was supposed to destroy; Robinson's accounts showed the money still in circulation.

Then he died.

An audit showed that at least 100,000 pounds were still out in illicit loans. The second largest debtor proved to be Bernard Moore, to the tune of about 8,500 pounds.

Moore was forced to liquidate much of his property. In one instance, he set up a lottery to dispose of lands and slaves.

Among the managers of the lottery were George Washington, Fielding Lewis (who was married to Washington's sister), John Randolph, Carter Braxton and Benjamin Harrison.

Moore did managed to retain Chelsea and a portion of the surrounding land. The plantation complex remained in the family until about 1874.

Bernard Moore is probably the builder, in about 1745, of the second half of the manor house, the gambrel-roofed back wing - no doubt to accommodate his family, which would grow to eight children, including:L[sic]

Alexander Spotswood, who would serve as aide-de-camp to Lafayette during the French general's Revolutionary War campaign in Virginia.

(It is possible that the Moore House at Yorktown, where surrender papers were drawn up in 1781, was the property of Alex Moore's elder brother, Augustine II, although the connection has never been made with certainty by any genealogist. An Augustine Moore purchased the property in 1769.

(Many contemporary accounts of the siege refer to the place as the ``widow'' Moore's house. Alex Moore's brother, Augustine II, died in 1777. However, other accounts indicate that another Augustine Moore died in 1788.)

Bernard Jr., who was a classmate and friend of Thomas Jefferson at William and Mary. He would inherit Chelsea.

Elizabeth, whose marriage at Chelsea in 1764 to Dr. John Walker was attended by Jefferson.

Anne Butler, who would marry Charles Carter of Shirley and bear him 12 children. Their daughter, Ann Hill Carter, would become Light Horse Harry Lee's second wife and the mother of Robert E. Lee.

At the risk of causing a genealogical meltdown, this final, vaguely related bit of trivia: Ann Hill Carter's brother, Bernard Moore Carter, married her stepdaughter, Lucy Grymes Lee (Light Horse Harry's daughter from his first marriage to his cousin Matilda) - a wedding that made Lucy a sister-in-law to her stepmother and an aunt to her half-brothers and half-sisters.

Chelsea is an interesting and unusual example of early 18th century architecture, although authorities on this subject are not in agreement about the details. The T-shaped, two-story manor house, of Flemish bond construction with glazed headers and rubbed brickwork, is built in two distinct styles.

The Georgian front, facing the river, has a raised English basement, one room on either side of a great entry hall on the first floor and another two rooms similarly separated on the second floor. The facade is crowned by a medallion cornice and a low hipped copper roof. There are massive, inset chimneys at either end.

A small, wrought-iron balcony similar to those that decorate the Lightfoot and the Governor's Palace at Williamsburg extends above the front entry door. The original pyramidal stone entry steps were removed when a Victorian-era porch was added. That porch has been removed and the steps will be restored to their original place.

The formal rooms, parlor and library, in the front section are trimmed from floor to ceiling with heart-pine paneling, and the entry hall is paneled entirely in walnut, one of only a few such rooms in colonial residences. Tuckahoe and Westover are the only two others that come to mind.

Many of the portraits that Gen. Lee viewed in the parlor and library are now in the possession of Colonial Williamsburg.

The house's more vernacular rear wing, virtually the same size as the front, appears slightly lower under a gambrel roof.

There are those who think the house was built all at the same time, about 1742, but this seems to disregard the fact that each section has a separate, unconnected basement, and the main stair junction to the rear section at the interflight landing appears to be a construction accommodation rather than a design initially connecting the two sections.

The manor house and several of its original outbuildings - kitchen, smoke house, packing house - are remarkably well preserved, and there are large formal boxwood gardens (replanted this century) interspersed with statuary.

However, Chelsea remains a working farm, a family home of the descendants of the builder and very much a restoration in progress. It must be viewed from that perspective rather than as a Colonial Williamsburg-style museum piece.

William W. Richardson III is the present owner of Chelsea. He is a descendent of Augustine Moore from his father's paternal side.

Richardson is a lawyer, practicing in nearby Providence Forge, and a collector of art and other fine (and rare) furnishings that visitors will see throughout the house.

He is proud of Chelsea's part in Virginia's cultural heritage. He also is very up front about his primary motivation for opening its doors. Paying guests will help defray the expenses.

``I have two children,'' he says, ``and I want to be able to leave this for them. It's a matter of cash flow.''

It is something that owners of such properties have chosen to do, or been forced to do, frequently in this century. Even by English dukes, who are as high as you can climb in what the Duke of Bedford calls ``snobocracy'' without royal blood flowing in your veins.

It's hardly crass commercialism. Only a snob would think so.

In his delightfully amusing ``The Duke of Bedford's Book of Snobs,'' the 13th duke, Ian Russell, writes: ``I regard it as the main purpose of life to keep Woburn Abbey for my family, and I am absolutely convinced that my way is the only way of doing it.'' His way was to open the great country estate to the public.

``It was either-or,'' the duke writes, ``either the public must be let in or I, myself, would have been locked out, too.''

Why, yes, of course, there's a ghost. Or seems to be. It's almost obligatory in old Virginia houses.

Richardson and his daughter witnessed one frightening, unexplained phenomenon one day while they were talking in an upstairs bedroom.

``I heard her gasp,'' he recalls. ``I looked around and the dresser was trembling, really moving about. It was not like something shaking the entire house. Just the dresser was moving.

``It really scared the heck out of me. We got out of there.

``We say that was cousin Lizzie.''

``Cousin'' is actually nobody in particular. That's also the name given to the woman in the portrait hanging over a fireplace in a back-wing room. She looks sort of like a young Angela Lansbury.

My hunch is that it may have something to do with Bernard Moore's mother-in-law, Anne Spotswood. She may have become a ghost - or so the story goes - although not at Chelsea.

This is a bit of a reach, I'll admit, but you don't mind a ghost story, do you?

After Gov. Spotswood retired, he moved to the vast tract of land he had acquired west of present-day Fredericksburg and set about managing a mail service and an iron-smelting operation from his ``Enchanted Castle'' at Germanna.

After the governor died, his widow, Anne, married Parson John Thompson and moved to Thompson's big brick mansion called La Grange. As the Revolutionary War approached, the parson went around to the five churches he served, gathered up the communion silver and brought it back to La Grange for safekeeping.

Immediately called away again to comfort some soldiers who had been wounded by the British near Fredericksburg, the parson was killed on this mission. No one ever saw his wife, Anne, or the silver again.

However . . . subsequent owners of La Grange reported seeing an elderly woman who would sweep through the lower rooms of the house and disappear through a wall of the drawing room.

When the wall was eventually inspected carefully, it was discovered to contain a moveable panel, which, when opened, revealed a secret passage.

At the bottom of a steep stairway lay a pile of heavily tarnished communion silver and the skeleton of an elderly woman. Do you suppose it was . . . ?

If ghosts can move from place to place - and why not? - this Chelsea apparition may have been Lady Anne. MEMO: Pilot Online, The Virginian-Pilot's home on the Internet, has

added a Travel section. The section highlights the best travel articles

from The Pilot, plus links to travel resources on the Internet. See Page

A2 for more information on Pilot Online, then point your World Wide Web

browser to http://www.pilotonline.com ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by STEPHEN HARRIMAN

The design of Chelsea (above), formal Georgian front with vernacular

gambrel-roofed rear, has confounded architectural historians.

It's[sic] paneled parlor (left) with window arches bracketing the

fireplace, is almost identical to the celebrated Wilton in Richmond.

Map

FILE PHOTO

Chelsea's entry hall is paneled entirely in walnut, one of only a

few such rooms in colonial residences in the state.