Chatham Manor the Custis slaves as executor after his in-laws' deaths. The plantation included an orchard, mill, and a race track where Fitzhugh's horses vied with those of other planters for prize money. Fizhugh named the mansion after the British parliamentarian William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who championed many of the opinions held by American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War. Flanking the main house were dozens of supporting structures: slave quarters, a dairy, ice house, barns, stables. Down on the river were fish traps. Fitzhugh sold the Chatham plantation to Major Churchill Jones, who had served under Col. William Washington
Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham over twenty years as a friend of her brothers, on 16 November 1754 at her home in Argyle Street, London. They spent their ten-day honeymoon at West Wickham, Kent. The marriage was a happy one and the couple moved to a house in Hayes, Kent in 1756. They had five children: On 4 December 1761, she was created Baroness Chatham, of Chatham, in the County of Kent, with remainder to her sons by William Pitt, who was later created Earl of Chatham in 1766. Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham Hester Pitt, Countess of Chatham, 1st Baroness Chatham (; 8 November