Lee-Jackson House - Lexington

The Lee-Jackson House is located on University Place, on the campus of Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia.  The house was originally built for Washington College President Henry Ruffner in 1842.  In 1848 George Junkin was elected the new president and moved into this home with his family.  His daughter, Elinor,  married Thomas Stonewall Jackson in 1853.  The future Confederate general was at the time a professor at VMI.  A wing was built onto the house and the couple lived here until 1854 when Ellie died shortly after childbirth.  Thomas remained at the home until he remarried in 1857.  The home he shared with second wife Mary Anna Morrison is now a museum in Lexington.  Junkin's other daughter, Mararet, lived here from 1848 until 1857, when she married John Thomas Lewis Preston, a professor at VMI.  Margaret would go on to become a poet, gaining fame as Margaret Junkin Preston, the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy.  In 1865 Junkin was replaced as President of Washington College by General Robert E. Lee, recently of the Army of Northern Virginia.  While Lee was waiting for a new home to be built for him, which now sits next to this home, he lived here from 1865 to 1869.  Lee would live next door until his death in 1870.  There is a plaque marking the house.    

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