Peyton Randolph House

Peyton Randolph’s Williamsburg home was built to sustain a powerful household. Randolph served as Speaker of Virginia’s House of Burgesses and later became the first president of the Continental Congress. His political life unfolded in the same town where more than two dozen enslaved people lived and worked on the family property.

The house preserves both sides of that arrangement. The Randolph family occupied the formal rooms, while enslaved workers cooked, cleaned, carried messages, cared for children, and maintained the property. Colonial Williamsburg identifies 27 enslaved people connected with the household. Their labor made the home function, but their lives were controlled by the family whose political influence helped shape the revolutionary movement.