History of the duPont Library

The Jessie Ball duPont Memorial Library

The Jessie Ball duPont Memorial Library's holdings include a collection of rare books, scholarly periodicals, juvenile books, manuscripts, and a specialized reference collection of approximately 8,000 books on American history, biography, architecture, gardening, and the decorative arts. Built using grant money from the duPont Fund, the library was dedicated in 1980 in memory of Jessie Ball duPont, a member of Stratford Hall's first Board of Directors and a generous supporter of education and research. Stratford Hall’s goal is to expand the Library’s educational and research resources and make them increasingly available to a larger audience through our web site.

The duPont Library is also classroom to Stratford Hall’s major research effort: the Stratford Hall-University of Mary Washington Field School in Historical Archaeology. Since 1993, a Field School directed by Dr. Doug Sanford has been uncovering the hidden landscape of the Lees. The findings have provided valuable information on how the Lees and their slaves lived at Stratford - information not available in the written record.

Overnight accommodations to facilitate research can be made in advance. Please contact Neva Folk, Director of Lodging and Conference Sales, at (804) 493-8038, ext. 8504 or email nfolk@stratfordhall.org for more information and availability. The Library’s duPont Room, where laptops with wireless network cards can access the Internet, can also be rented for meetings or conferences, depending on availability.

Special collections for in-depth research include:

• The Lee Family Papers - a collection of documents and manuscripts to and from the family of Lees descended from Richard Lee, the Emigrant. Selected historical documents have been made accessible for on-line research.
• William Lee Letterbooks - several 18th-century letterbooks of Thomas Lee’s son William; other William Lee letterbooks are located in the collections of the Virginia Historical Society.
• The Edmund Jennings Lee Collection - a collection of Lee manuscripts compiled by the author of the massive family genealogical reference Lee of Virginia: 1642-1892.
• The Walter Herron Taylor Papers - a collection of letters written by Col. Walter Taylor, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Chief Aide-de-camp.
• The Taylor Family Papers - a miscellaneous collection of letters, photographs, and ephemera from the Taylors and related families who lived in the Northern Neck of Virginia; donated to Stratford Hall by Bill & Sue Taylor of The Grove, Kinsale, Virginia.
• Cartes de Visite collection - various cartes of the Lee family and an album "Heroes of the Confederacy," a collection of over 100 carte photographs compiled by a Confederate veteran after the war.
• Robert E. Lee Memorial Association Archives - Correspondence and reports of Stratford Hall's Board, Executive Directors, staff, researchers, historians, and architects; from 1929 to the present [not all processed with finding aid]; includes 1930s research by Ethel Armes and correspondence of restoration architect Fiske Kimball dealing with his work at Stratford Hall.
• Visual arts collection - Photographs, engravings and other images of the historic buildings and grounds; 1850s to present.
• Archaeological Reports for Stratford Hall - from the early excavations of the 1930s, the Clifts "Manner House" dig of the 1970s, and Field School reports from 1993 to the present.
• Microfilm collection - includes Lee Family Papers, Jefferson Papers, Virginia Gazette, Maryland Gazette, Shippen Papers, and others.

Reference Collection includes: Hennings Statutes, Diderot’s Encyclopedia, the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, and more.