his main residence northward from near Fredericksburg to Alexandria, across from the new federal buildings (but part of the District of Columbia from 1790 until decades after Fitzhugh's death). His cousin Col. Henry Fitzhugh (1723-1783; son of Burgess Henry Fitzhugh who died in 1745) having died, Fitzhugh acquired much of his estate in Fairfax County (where north Springfiled is now located) from his heirs. In 1796 William Fitzhugh built another mansion, that he called Ravensworth. That Fairfax County property became his country home, with the Fitzhughs spending winters at their townhouse in Alexandria. Ravensworth stood until about 1925, when it burned under mysterious circumstances. About 1799, William Fitzhugh bought the house at 607 Oronoco Street, Alexandria, Virginia, which is now usually known as "The Boyhood Home of Robert E. Lee." The house had been built in 1795 by John Potts, Jr. After William Fitzhugh's death, William Henry Fitzhugh inherited the property and rented it to the Lee family. Political career Fitzhugh first served as a legislator when Virginia's General Assembly consisted solely of the House of Burgesses. He was one of two part-time representatives from King George County, and served alongside Joseph Jones between 1772 and 1775. When tensions with Britain escalated and Virginia colonial governor John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, dissolved the Assembly, Fitzhugh and Jones continued to serve their County in all five ad hoc Virginia Revolutionary conventions (some held in Williamsburg and others in Richmond), as well as in the first sessions of the Virginia House of Delegates after creation of the new state government. Fitzhugh was also a member of the Revolutionary Committee of Safety in 1774–75. During the American Revolutionary War Fitzhugh was a commissioner of two arms and munitions factories. He represented Stafford County as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates beginning in 1777. Somewhat ironically, Fitzhugh served and then succeeded his distant cousin, Charles Carter, who had previously represented King George County in the House of Burgesses (as had his father of the same name, but who had been disinherited for his excessive spending, won a court case in order to acquire then resell that inherited property, and used the proceeds and loans from Speaker John Robinson in order to move from King George to Stafford County, which that Charles Carter represented before, during and after the American Revolutionary War while also incurring additional personal financial problems. Meanwhile, beginning in