Ravensworth was the largest and best known of the three mansions built on the large Ravensworth land grant. William Fitzhugh (1741-1809), a great grandson of "William, the Immigrant," built the manor house circa 1796 on his inherited 12,000 acres. When he died in 1809, the property passed to his son William Henry and, upon the son's death in 1830, to William Henry's childless widow Anna Maria Sarah (Goldsborough) Fitzhugh. Without a direct heir, Anna Maria received the property for her lifetime in trust for William Henry's niece, Mary Custis Lee, and her heirs.
Anna Maria managed the estate through the difficult years of the Civil War until her death in 1874. The property, reduced by sales to 8,300 acres, was then divided among the five living Lee children, Mary Custis Lee having died in 1873.
Mary Custis Lee was the wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. They married when he was a lieutenant. Mary’s mother was Mary Lee Fitzhugh, and her father George Washington Parke Custis of Arlington House was the grandson of Martha Washington, wife of the nation’s first president.
In 1874, Confederate General William Henry Fitzhugh "Rooney" Lee – the son of Robert E. and Mary Custis Lee -- inherited the Ravensworth manor house and 502 acres. He lived there from 1874 until his death in 1891. The house burned August 1, 1926. The Lee Family rebuilt a farm house on the same foundation, and it remained there until the land was sold for development in 1957.
