Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library

The Moody House, now being need as a guest house by the Inn, was a small, unpretentious house-and might be used as a modest exhibition dwelling. A new report has been prepared on this site, but has not been typed up. The Frenchman's Map indicates a house on this site. The Josiah Moody who once owned the property does not seem to have been particularly well to do, although we do not know his occupation.

THE ROPER HOUSE^{The Moody House [Formerly Called the Roper-Lee House}
Block 2, No. 32
May 9, 1939

This story and a half frame dwelling is situated in James City County, and as the bulk of the records were destroyed during the Civil War, the historical material available is fragmentary.

The earliest definite reference we have to the property is ascertained from a town plan map of the city of Williamsburg drawn by Benjamin Bucktrout in August, 1800, and from another early town plan map of the city drawn by an unknown draftsman. This "map of Williamsburg" was described by the late Lyon G. Tyler (evidently from some internal evidence) as having been drawn "about 1790." According to the Bucktrout map the property was owned in 1800 by some member of the Moody family—which one is not indicated.

When historical material was gathered for the House Naming Committee in 1934, the following information was given by the Research Department:

This house is marked "Byrd" on the town map. There was a Susan Byrd, a John Byrd, an Addison L. Byrd, a Mary H. Byrd & Sarah W. Byrd in the 19th century, and the James City records being so fragmentary makes this a poor name, especially as there is a real Byrd House.

The house is eighteenth century but it is impossible to trace all the property of the six Byrds and find which one owned it at about 1800, the approximate date of the map.

Though the lot immediately west of the Roper lot [there appears to have been an alley between them] was owned at the time Bucktrout's and the other plan were made, by some member of the Byrd family, there is no evidence in the material accumulated by the department to show that the "Roper lot" was ever owned by any member of the Byrd family. 2 The above-mentioned statement made to the House Naming Committee in 1934 is obviously incorrect and the error was doubtless made by a confusion of the "Roper lot" with the property immediately west of the alley or passage-way contiguous to it, which, as has been said, was owned by a member of the Byrd family in the year 1800.

In the Williamsburg Land Tax Book for 1856 in the Virginia State Archives, there is a transfer of property from Johnson Sands to Robert Roper.

Robert R. Roper — 1 part of lot to Johnson Sands
Johnson Sands — $250 sold to Robert R. Roper and deducted.

Whether the property sold by Sands to Robert Roper at that date had been acquired by him at some earlier time from the said Moody, and is that now described as the Roper lot, there is no evidence to prove.

An aged resident of Williamsburg states, however, that this property was owned by the Roper family as early as 1861.

Mrs. Victoria Lee, recalling the city as it was at that time, in her account, Williamsburg in 1861:

…
Across from the Southall house, on the south side of Francis street, was the Roper house. This building with its small front porch, looked then as it does today. The Ropers owned and lived in this house…^{Recollections" p.69. C, L, & V.}

Robert Roper owned the house until his death, and in his will, probated in 1893, devised the property to his daughters. C. D. Lee, who married Ludie E. Roper, was the last owner of the house.