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Martha Ball Buckner Fletcher died Thursday, Sept. 12, at her home Thornton Hill outside Sperryville. She was 107.
Mattie Ball to her friends and "Mother Ball" to many in the younger generation, she was the oldest descendent of Mary Washington, mother of the first president. Her great-grandfather married Martha Dandridge, a granddaughter of Charles Washington, brother of George Washington.
Another of her Virginia ancestors, William Buckner, brought the first printing press to this country.
She was a lifelong resident of Rappahannock County and member of Trinity Episcopal Church. She was also a renowned cook and gardener.
Mrs. Fletcher was the widow of William Meade Fletcher, a prominent Virginia attorney and pioneer legal scholar in corporate law and author of Fletcher on Corporations.
She lived at Thornton Hill from her marriage at the age of 27 until she was 85 years old when she moved to Peyton Place, which had been the county's first jail and jailer's house in the Town of Washington. She lived there for 20 years before returning to Thornton Hill following a fall.
Thornton Hill was originally the home of Jane Washington, daughter of George Washington's oldest brother Lawrence, and one of the few places George Washington actually slept.
Mrs. Fletcher was featured in The New York Times, Gourmet
See Fletcher, Page A-6
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