Chelsea is a historic home located near

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

King William County, Virginia King William County is a county located in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,810. Its county seat is King William. King William County is located in the Middle Peninsula and is included in the Greate ...

. It was built in 1709, and consists of a two-story, brick main block with a hipped roof and -story, gambrel roofed rear ell. In 1764,

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

attended the wedding of an old friend, John Walker, at Chelsea; sources commonly say (and Jefferson eventually, in 1805, seemed to acknowledge) that he later repeatedly made improper advances to his friend's wife, all of which she rejected.see, for example, Jon Meacham, "Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power", Random House, 2012 In 1781, shortly before the Battle of Yorktown, Lafayette's army camped at Chelsea, and the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (), was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Conti ...

used the house as his headquarters. an
''Accompanying photo''
/ref> It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1969.

References

External links

Chelsea, Mattaponi River, West Point, King William County, VA
at the

Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

(HABS) Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Houses completed in 1709 Houses in King William County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in King William County, Virginia Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia 1709 establishments in the Colony of Virginia Brick buildings and structures in Virginia {{KingWilliamCountyVA-NRHP-stub