Peyton Randolph House: First President of the Continental Congress

The largest private residence in Colonial Williamsburg belonged to Peyton Randolph, the man who presided over the Continental Congress when it first convened in seventeen seventy-four.

The house dates to about seventeen fifteen, built by a council clerk named William Robertson. Randolph's father, Sir John Randolph, bought the property in seventeen twenty-four, and Peyton later expanded it dramatically, turning the original structure into a seven-bay, two-story mansion facing Market Square. He held that speakership until the Revolution pulled him toward Philadelphia, where he was elected the first and third President of the Continental Congress. Randolph died in Philadelphia in October of seventeen seventy-five, before independence was declared.

His home in Williamsburg passed to later private owners, including the Peachy family, who used it as a hospital during the Civil War. Colonial Williamsburg acquired and restored it between nineteen thirty eight and nineteen forty as one of its landmark properties. The Randolph house is now a National Historic Landmark, representing the generation of Virginians who organized colonial resistance before the shooting began.