Webb Deane Stevens Museum

FEUDING FOUNDERS COLLECTIVE | Stratford Hall & Menokin, VA: The Lee—Deane Conflict and the Political "Bloodbath" of 1778
2026-11-08 10:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Stratford Hall, 483 Great House Road, Stratford, VA, 22558
This event takes place at Stratford Hall and Menokin in Virginia. Attend the full day in person, or purchase a virtual ticket for the roundtable discussion.
Presented in partnership with Jay Heritage Center (NY), Friends of John Jay Homestead, and Menokin and Stratford Hall (VA), this series destabilizes the one-dimensional portraits we’ve inherited and invites audiences to sit with the full complexity of these lives: the ambition and the insecurity, the idealism and the grudges, the smear campaigns and the shared cause.
How did a diplomatic dispute become one of the first political media storms in American history?
Join us at Stratford Hall in Montross, VA for a Semiquincentennial conversation on the aftermath of the Lee—Deane Conflict. In 1776, Silas Deane of Connecticut was sent to France to secure crucial wartime support. He came under fire when Arthur Lee, a Virginian also posted in Europe, accused Deane of profiteering and fraud. The matter exploded into the public sphere when Deane fired back, charging Arthur Lee with spying for the British and sharing information with them. Virginia congressmen Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee found themselves defending their family’s reputation amid a fierce smear campaign that played out in the pages of newspapers up and down the Eastern seaboard. John Jay, then president of Congress, was drawn into the dispute as well, with consequences that would shadow his diplomatic career for years. As accusations and defenses spilled from private correspondence into newspapers, the reputations of all four men were tested before a watching public.
This is a day for people who want to see how the Revolution unfolded not only in congresses and courts, but in print and in public opinion. Begin the morning with a tour of Menokin, Francis Lightfoot Lee’s home, before traveling to nearby Stratford Hall to walk the grounds and tour the house where the Lee brothers grew up. Share lunch and conversation, then hear from scholars representing all four partner sites—Menokin, Stratford Hall, the Webb Deane Stevens Museum, and the John Jay Historic Site—as they examine how the Deane controversy reverberated through the early republic. This Affair affected the reputations of other “feuding fathers” including Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, and John Adams. It offers a window into the rough-and-tumble politics of the 1770s—and a reminder that the tensions between press, politics, and personal reputation are as old as the republic itself.
SCHEDULE (subject to updates)
10:00 AM-11:30 AM: Tour Menokin house and grounds, Warsaw, VA
12:00 PM-1:00 PM: Lunch at Stratford Hall, Montross VA
1:00 PM-2:30 PM: Hour long round table discussion plus Q&A on the Lee—Deane Conflict with representatives from the historic homes of John Jay (NY), Silas Deane (CT), Richard Henry Lee (VA) and Francis Lightfoot Lee (VA).
3:00-4:30 PM: Tour of Stratford Hall
5:00-6:00 PM: Wrap-up Reception and NNK Symposium Kick off, Stratford Hall
6:30-7:30 PM: Talk | NNK Symposium Keynote [add-on $10]
Pricing:
$30 | Sun, 11/8 Day Pass: Includes Menokin tour, Stratford tour, Roundtable, Reception
$10 | Add-on: NNK symposium keynote on 11/8 and NNK Symposium ticket for 11/9
$15 | Roundtable only
$5 | Virtual admission only to Roundtable
Special: $60: Pass to 11/8 Feuding Founders Symposium + Pass to 11/9 NNK Symposium
For more information or to register interest, email Connie Rosemont at crosemont@menokin.org or Hunter Peal at hunterp@stratfordhall.org

Attend All Three!
Each roundtable discussion will be livestreamed on Zoom. Attend all events onsite, online, or a combination!
Webb Deane Stevens Museum | The Making of Silas Deane: May 16, Connecticut
Jay Heritage Center | John Jay, Diplomat and Spymaster: September 26, New York
Stratford Hall & Menokin | The Lee—Deane Conflict and the Political “Bloodbath” of 1778: November 8, Virginia

About Stratford Hall
Stratford Hall brings together people from around the world to experience two-thousand acres of natural and human history, preserved and presented so that we can all learn from the courageous struggles of our ancestors, taking inspiration both from what they endured and what they accomplished. There are few places in America where people can travel down small, rural roads to arrive at a vast site that preserves so many aspects of early-American life, from the Great House where the influential Lee family helped to forge a new nation, to the fields worked by enslaved Africans, to the waters of the rivers that fueled trade, to the ground, which still yields secrets about the people and animals that lived before. Come experience this extraordinary place and learn about a layered history that began millions of years ago—a history that continues to educate, inspire, and influence Americans to the present day.
About Menokin
The Menokin Foundation uses the historic ruin of Francis Lightfoot Lee’s 18th-century home — and the surrounding built and natural environments — as a living laboratory for preservation and public engagement. Rather than recreating the past, Menokin employs contemporary methods to invite visitors into an active exploration of how America was built and what that history means today. One of the most distinctive historic sites in Virginia, Menokin reimagines what a house museum can be — and what honest, provocative engagement with our nation’s founding ideals and realities looks like on the ground.
