Stratford Hall Hosts Citizenship Ceremony as Part of Commemoration of Lee Resolution

The resolution was the Continental Congress's first formal assertion of independence from Britain.

By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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One of the 100 new Americans who became citizens last weekend during a ceremony at Stratford Hall. Photos courtesy Stratford Hall communications.

Stratford Hall hosted a citizenship ceremony for more than 100 new young Americans last weekend as part of an inaugural event called “Virginia Resolved.”

The event commemorated the anniversary of the Resolution for Independence, which Richard Henry Lee—who lived at Stratford as a boy—introduced to the Second Continental Congress on June 7, 1776, and which the Congress passed on July 2, two days before approving the Declaration of Independence.

Lee’s resolution was the formal assertion that the Thirteen Colonies were free and independent states, separate from Britain. The full text of the resolution reads:

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.

That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation

“Virginia Resolved: A Commemoration of Independence” celebrated the 249th anniversary of Lee’s resolution.

Ethan Burgess, director of communications for Stratford Hall, said the citizenship ceremony was “the first of its kind” held at the historic house museum in Westmoreland County and will be repeated at next year’s 250th commemoration of Lee’s resolution.

The Norfolk office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services helped plan the ceremony and “most of the new citizens at this ceremony were minors,” Burgess wrote in an email to the Advance.

In addition to the citizenship ceremony, attendees at last weekend’s event saw musket demonstrations, cavalry drills portraying the 1st and 4th Continental Light Dragoons, colonial foodways demonstrations, and colonial music by Ampersand.

Also during the event, Stratford premiered the third video in a three-part series on the Revolution-era Lee family, which in addition to Richard Henry Lee included another signer of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Lightfoot Lee.

Clockwise from top left: Richard Henry Lee (impersonated by Frank Megargee of Colonial Williamsburg); cavalry and musket demonstrations; Ampersand performs in the historic house.

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