Historic Kenmore - Tea or Liberty

The Washington and Lewis families chose to fight for liberty.

Their choice earned our freedom .

Once upon a time, on March 30, 1775, before there was a United States of America, George Washington supped here.

Betty Lewis Washington recorded in his diary that on March 29 and 30, 1775, he "dined at Colo. Lewis'." Colonel Fielding Lewis was married to Washington's sister, Betty. The painting above, by Peter Waddell, shows members of the Washington and Lewis families gathered in the drawing room at a crucial moment in American history.

Colonists were on the brink of rebelling against Great Britain, their mother country. British Parliament had imposed high taxes on imported teas. Americans resented being taxed without representation in Parliament. Washington, one of Virginia's representatives to the first Continental Congress, strategized how to counter British taxation and oppression.

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