University of Virginia Library

THE PRATT FAMILY

The Pratt Family came to America from England. There is
a tradition that a son of Charles Pratt, Earl of Camden and
Chief Justice of England, had a difficulty with a fellow-student
at Oxford and on account of this difficulty came to America
rather than embarrass his father. He settled in King George
county and was soon followed by a younger brother who decided
to cast his lot in the new country. These brothers acquired
estates, married and became heads of large families.

John Pratt came from King George to Caroline in 1790,
married a widow, Mrs. Dixon, of Port Royal. He bought a large
tract of land on the Rappahannock, below Port Royal, from the
Micou and Lomax families and built the first Camden house.
This house was of the long colonial type. In 1858 William
Pratt razed the original Camden house and built the present
structure, which is of the Italian Villa type, with very large
rooms and porches.

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Camden

During the Civil War, when the community was in the hands
of the Confederate Army, this house was the scene of many dances
and other festivities, and many are the stories told of the brilliant
functions held here. But when the tide turned and the Federal
troops came in all was different and the house was as solemn
and quiet as the burying ground hard by. The Northern troops
threatened to burn the house several times and once fired on it
from gunboats on the Rappahannock, but did very little damage.

The house stands near the bank of the Rappahannock, on a
bluff overlooking the broad expanse of the river which here
resembles a lake. It is surrounded by an unusually large lawn
which is covered with many beautiful old trees. The Camden
farm consists of about 1,400 acres on which is one of the finest
apple orchards in Tidewater Virginia. The place is managed by
the Hon. Richard T. Pratt, a lineal descendant of this ancient
family, who for a time represented Caroline in the House of
Delegates. Mr. Pratt m. Miss Courtney Crump, daughter of
Judge Beverly Crump, of Richmond His brother William T
Pratt, m 1st Miss Marshall and 2d Miss Mary Custis Lee, of
Stafford, and lives in Fredericksburg, Va.

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Messrs. William and Richard Pratt have two sisters: Mrs.
Ida Vivian Funsten, widow of the late Bishop James Bowen
Funsten, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and Miss Maggie
Pratt, who lives with her mother at "Camden."

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as many mullets of the first.

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a lion ramp. or, each gorged with a collar ar. charged with three
mullets sa.

Judicium parium aut lex terrae.