40th Anniversary Strother Conference
The William Strother Society will be celebrating its 40th anniversary while also celebrating our country’s 250th birthday by enjoying an amazing program worthy of such milestones. We’ll be exploring our colonial family sites while learning much about our colonial family history from an impressive lineup of speakers.
We begin the celebration on Wednesday evening when we drive from the hotel to Ferry Farm independently. Bill Garner, President of the George Washington Foundation, will kick off the festivities as our first speaker when the sun sets at beautiful Ferry Farm. Thursday morning, we board a bus and head north to Mt. Vernon. Upon our arrival, guests will receive guided tours by expert docents, lunch, and exclusive access to the George Washington Presidential Library, usually not open to the public. Our Strother group will have an educational stop at the Special Collections Vault to view historic Washington/Strother papers before busing back for dinner in Fredericksburg that evening.
Friday, we will board a bus for historic St. John’s Church in nearby King George County. There communion will be offered using our family silver that has been in continuous use for over 300 years! Next we’ll make the quick journey over to Millbank which is the first Strother-owned property in the new world dating back to 1669. There we'll see select archaeological finds from Millbank and be able to walk the historic Strother grounds and view our official Virginia historical marker which is located on the property. We will then head over to nearby Belle Grove and Emmanuel Church where our new Strother Society friend and property manager, Michelle Darnell, will give us the history of the property and all the Strother connections related to the plantation. For instance, President James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, was born on the property. For lunch, we will head back to Ferry Farm where Dave Muraca, Vice President of Museum Content, will lead our archeology “lunch and learn” discussion (box lunches served at the pavilion). There will be docent led tours of the Strother/Washington replica house as well as Strother layer artifact viewings and program discussions led by Ferry Farm experts to finish off the daytime program before busing back to the hotel. Dinner that evening will be at historic Kenmore, including a scrumptious meal while enjoying a Zoom lecture from Dr. Gail Wertz. Dr. Wertz and her husband own Millbank and she will provide more information on her Millbank archeology findings.
Our final conference day begins at the Hyatt Place Hotel with our general business meeting and elections (everyone is invited!). Following that is our 2nd Board of Directors Meeting, which should be completed around noon. Saturday afternoon offers an opportunity for everyone to enjoy their leisure time, including the many available Fredericksburg historical attractions! Later that evening, we will meet at historic Woolen Mill on the Rappahannock River for family portraits, mingling, and a formal meal. Revolutionary War era drum and fife music will set the mood. Professor Michael G. Spencer, Associate Professor and Prince B. Woodard Chair in Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington will be our featured dinner speaker. His talk will place Ferry Farm within the broader story of Fredericksburg’s growth during the eighteenth century and the years leading up to the Revolutionary War.