Dudley Digges House, circa 1760

Dudley Digges House, circa 1760. Historic Yorktown.

"…Lieutenant-colonel Tarleton directed them to charge into the town, (Charlottesville, Virginia)… and to apprehend, if possible, the governor and assembly. Seven members of the assembly were secured…and several officers and men, were killed, wounded, or taken." Lieutenant-Colonel Banastre Tarleton, A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781

, One of the members of the Virginia assembly captured by the British during their Charlottesville raid on June 4, 1781 was the former lieutenant governor of the state, Dudley Digges. Digges’ capture ended his prominent political involvement in the American Revolution., The Digges family had participated in colonial government since the immigration in 1650 of Dudley’ great-grandfather, Edward Digges, from England. Dudley was born around 1728 and by his early twenties was a practicing lawyer in York County. He served in the House of Burgesses from 1752 until the start of the American Revolutionary War. Throughout the war, Dudley remained active in numerous areas of Virginia government, including helping to write the commonwealth’s first constitution and becoming one of the first members of the state council., Dudley’s home, like so many other Yorktown houses, was damaged during the 1781 siege and rendered uninhabitable. Dudley moved to Williamsburg and died there in 1790., (captions) , Dudley Digges built this classic Virginia Tidewater style home around 1760. The outbuildings, wellhouse, kitchen, granary, and smokehouse are typical of those found in the colonial era. The house was restored in 1960 and the outbuildings reconstructed by the National Park Service in the 1970s., The restoration work in 1960 revealed cannonball damage to the house from the 1781 siege as evidenced in this photograph., In 1834 artist John Gadsby Chapman painted, “View of Yorktown,” showing Dudley Digges' house and a few dependencies on the far left side of the painting. Courtesy of Homeland Foundation, Incorporated, New York, Dudley Digges' signature Courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society