The Eighth National Strother Conference held in Fredericksburg, Virginia and the host hotel was the Holiday Inn Select.  Formerly the Sheraton Fredericksburg Resort and Conference Center, the hotel underwent a complete renovation and is operating under a new name.  The 139 attendees enjoyed the program, including:

• A visit to Millbank at the invitation of the owner, John J. Ballentine, Jr.  We had just learned that Mr. Ballentine had sold Millbank and the closing was just after the Conference.  We toured the grounds, visited the little graveyard to the east, and enjoyed box lunches.
• We again visited the Strother family sites Albion, Ferry Farm, and St. John’s Episcopal Church, and two new sites, King George Museum (which contains some artifacts from the Millbank dig), and Emmanual Church in Hanover Parish.
• A very successful Town Hall Meeting.
• The banquet speaker was Margaretta Barton Colt, who gave a review of her book “Defend the Valley: A Shenandoah Family in the Civil War.”

Mr. Ballentine has granted the Strother Society a perpetual easement to a parcel of land located adjacent to the entrance road and on which we will place the William Strother Memorial Stone and the crimson maple tree planted in memory of George A. Fenwick, one of our founders.