GWC Lee Confers the Peale Portraits
[The following highlight is a 1898 letter delivered to George Washington Custis Lee, who served as university president from 1871 to 1897. Shortly after trustees accepted his resignation, GWC Lee donated a significant collection of materials that belonged to George Washington and the Custis family, including the priceless Charles Wilson Peale portrait of Col. Washington. (Source: W&L Trustees Papers, Folder 294, Washington and Lee University Archives.)]
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, Virginia
June 15, 1898
(Motion of Mr. Ranson)
Unanimously resolved,
That the Board of Trustees of Washington and Lee University desires to express, and to enter upon its record, the grateful acknowledgments due to our President Emeritus, General G.W.C. Lee, for his recent donation of more than Five Hundred volumes to the Library of the University.
Following his gift of the priceless portraits of Washington and of Lafayette, and of the generous establishment of the Custis Lee Scholarship, we feel that the institution is enriched no less by such repeated Evidences of his friendly interest than by the material value of what he has given.
And we look forward with pleasure to the renewal of our closer relations with him, as a member of this Board.
The Secretary is instructed to communicate this minute to General Lee.
Adopted