Mount Vernon, Washington's home and the nation's shrine

Front matter

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CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

Chapter I

Mount Vernon's Beginnings— The Doeg Indians— John Smith's Account of the Upper Tidewater Potomac — Leonard Calvert at Piscataway — Early Royal Grants of the Northern Neck— The Enghsh Washingtons — First Washingtons in Virginia — Washingtons and Fairfaxes Move Up the Potomac — ^Title to Hunting Creek Tract — The First Dwelling — ^The Fire — Lawrence Washington .......... 3

Chapter II

What Lawrence Found on His Tract — Pioneer Buildings — Abandons His Estate for Military Service in the West Indies Under Admiral Vernon — ^Returns and Marries Anne Fairfax — Career of Lawrence Washington — ^Arrival of George to Make His Home at Mount Vernon — Parson Weems — Influences on George's Young Character at Mount Vernon and at Belvoir — ^The Original House —Who Built It?— The Cornerstone. .... 15

CHAPTER in

Lawrence Plans George's Career — Letter of Uncle Joseph Ball — ^Fox Hunting with Lord Fairfax-^Absent Surveying in the Valley — Sentimental Manifestations — ^Military Tutors at Mount Vernon — Lawrence 111 — ^Lawrence and George Sail for Barbadoes — Return and Death and Will of Lawrence — George Master of Mount Vernon .......... 26

Chapter IV

Absences from Home — Military Expeditions to the Ohio — ^Mary Washington's Last Visit to Mount Vernon — Organizing the Household — Political Aspirations — John Augustine Washington the First Manager— OfiP to the West with Braddock — Military Career Unremunerative — ^Home with Extended Fame, General Braddock's Battle Charger and Bishop — Women Who Might Have Been Mis-

X TABLE OF CONTENTS

tress of Mount Vemon — Washington Made Commander of All Virginia Troops— A Winter's Illness at Mount Veraon, Not Without Compensation ....... 37

Chapter V

A Chapter Wholly Away from Mount Vernon — Most Significant to Its History — Bishop's Vigil — ^Dinner at Mr. Chamberlayne's — Martha Dandridge Custis — ^Her Family — Early Life — George Washington and Martha Custis Betrothed — Off to the West — ■ Letters — ^Restoring Mount Vernon in Its Master's Absence — The Wedding — ^Honeymoon at the Six-chimney House in Williamsburg — Washington in the House of Burgesses — Bringing the Bride to Mount Vernon — Curiosity of the Neighbors and Retainers — The Arrival — Martha Washington Mistress of Mount Vernon . . .... . . . . .50

Chapter VI

Settling in Mount Vernon — Development of the Domestic Life on the Plantation — Martha Washington as a Housekeeper — Mount Vernon Grows into a Village — The Spinning House — ^The Laundry — The Dairy — ^The Smoke House — ^The Kitchen — Shopping in London by Way of the Tobacco Ships — Washington's Taste — Daily Routine — ^The Beginnings of Sixteen Years of Home Life and the Upbuilding of the Estate .... 65

Chapter VII

Washington as a Planter — Extending the Boundaries of the Estate — ^The Five Farms — Farm Organization — Virginia Methods —Agricultural Experiments — ^Horses and Cattle — The Old Mill — The Distillery — The Ovens — ^Fish and Fishing — Charity— Making Ends Meet 76

Chapter VIII

Social Life — Processions of Guests — Dinner Parties — English Naval OflBcers — Neighborhood Life— The Mansions on Both Sides of the Potomac— To Annapolis for the Races — Captain John Posey's Letter — ^Alexandria Associations — The Bread and

Butter Ball— Fox Hunting — Nearby Race Tracks— Lotteries

Duelling— Mrs. Washington's Children, John and Martha Custis — Dancing Classes •■•... 89

TABLE OF CONTENTS xi

Chapter IX

Washington in Colonial Public Life — Vestryman of Truro Parish — ^Drawing the Parish Lines to Capture Mount Vernon— Attendance at Pohick Church — ^As a Churchman — As Burgess in the Assembly at Williamsburg — ^Trips Between Mount Vernon and the Capital — ^Late Summers at Bath Springs — A Trip to New York— Charles WillsonPeale— The First Portrait . . 104

Chapter X

Last Years Before the Revolution — Changes in the Family and in the Neighborhood — Death of Martha Custis — ^The Fairfaxes Leave for England — Sale at Belvoir — Jack Custis Marries Eleanor Calvert — Courtly Letters — Mount Vernon Adapts Itself to the Stamp Act — ^The Fairfax Resolves — Notable Conferences at Mount Vernon — Preparing to Enlarge the House — Eccentric Charles Lee — Preparations for the Impending Struggle — The Eyes of the Colonies on Mount Vernon — ^The Richmond Convention — ^To the Congress in Philadelphia — Commander-in-Chief of the Army ......... 116

Chapter XI

Moimt Vernon During the Revolution — ^Mrs. Washington's Absences in Camp — ^Lund Washington in Charge of the Estate — The Door of Hospitality Kept Open by the Absent Master — Postal Facilities — British on the Potomac — ^Designs on Mount Vernon — Mrs. Washington Flees for a Night — Tarlton's Raiders — Lund Propitiates the British — The General's Rebuke — ^Building Operations — The Northeast and Southwest Additions Completed — Outbuildings Built and Rebuilt — ^The Portico — Belvoir Burned —The General's Brief Visit After Six Years' Absence— Death of John Parke Custis — Washington Adopts Two of His Children — Two Years Later Resigns Commission and Returns Home and to Private Life 132

Chapter XII

Washington's Delight to Be at Mount Vernon Again— Letters —To Fredericksburg, Philadelphia, and the Ohio Country— Putting a Finish on Grotmds and Buildings— The Bowling Green and the Serpentine Drive— Trees— The Deer Park— Gardens— Walls- Barns— Fences— A Toper's Contract— The General's Warhorsexii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Nelson— Mrs. Washington's Grandchildren— His Nephews and Nieces — First Wedding in the Mansion — Dreaming a Deed from the General— Shiftless Harriott 145

Chapter XIII

Burdens of Greatness — Secretaries in the Home — ^David Huniphries and WilUam Smith — Anecdote of Old Bishop and His Daughter — Gideon Snow — ^William Shaw — Tobias lycar— New Associations with Alexandria — ^Visitors' Descriptions of Life at Mount Vernon — Sitting for the Portrait Painters — ^Arrival of Houdon — ^He Models the Bust — ^LaFayette's Visit — Gifts from Abroad — French Hounds — ^The Vaughan Mantel — Mules from Malta — Asses from the King of Spain . . . .160

Chapter XIV

Mount Vernon the Cradle of Constitutional Agitation — Union of States First Effected at Moimt Vernon Conference — Off to the Constitutional Convention — Washington's Passion for the Constitution — Virginia In a Turmoil — Ratification — ^Dreading the Interruption of His Home Life — Elected First President of the United States — The Formal Notification at Mount Vernon — Breaking Home Ties — End of His Furlough — Departure for the Inauguration ........ 177

Chapter XV

Mount Vernon During the Presidency — ^Visits Home — Arrival of the Key of the Bastille— Mode of Travel— The Hard Riding Aide and the General's Anger — Directions for Hospitality at Mount Vernon in His Absence — Managers of the Estate: George Augustine Washington, Anthony Whitmg, Howell Lewis, William Pearce and James Anderson — Keeping In Touch with His Estate when Absent — ^New Barns — Mrs. Washington Homesick in Philadelphia — ^The General's Love for His Home — ^Retires from Public Life — ^Returns to Motmt Vernon . .186

Chapter XVI

Planter Once More— Repairing the Neglect of Years of Absence — ^Refurnishing the Mansion — Joking About Death — ^Renewed Social Gayety — A Letter to Mrs. Fairfax — George Washington LaFayette — Distinguished Visitors — Bushrod Washington and

TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

John Marshall Bring a Peddler's Pack— General Henry Lee and His Liberties— The Polish Gentleman's Visit— Washington's Own Account of How He Spent His Time. .... 201

Chapter XVII

The Year 1799 — Washington's Fortieth Wedding Anniversary —Two Birthday Celebrations— Wedding of Nellie Custis and Lawrence Lewis — ^A Gay Summer — First Dinner Alone with Mrs. Washington in Twenty Years — Bankruptcy by Hospitality — Mount Vernon Washington's Consuming Interest — ^A Luxury — The Rickety Stairway at the Polls — A Birth in the Mansion — Washington Survives His Sister and All His Brothers — Last Dinner Parties at Mount Eagle and Mount Vernon — Caught in a Storm — ^Last Illness — ^Death — Funeral ..... 216

Chapter XVIII

Death Chamber Sealed — Washington's Will — Mount Vernon Bequeathed to Bushrod Washington — Other Bequests — The Inventory — ^The Slave Problem — ^Martha Washington's Last Days — ^Death — Family Matters — Pictm-es, Plate, Furnishings, and Souvenirs Dispersed — Sale of 1802 — Bushrod Washington Takes Possession of Mount Vernon .... 225

Chapter XIX

Career of Bushrod Washington — Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States — Estimates by Contemporaries — Mount Vernon and the English Fleet in 1814 — Battle off Belvoir — ^Reverend Charles O'NeUl — Retiun of LaFayette — Death of Justice Washington — ^The Two John Augustine Washingtons — ^New Tomb — ^Reentombment of the General and Mrs. Washington — Other Burials — The Key Thrown into the Potomac . 240

Chapter XX

Mount Vernon Lands Diminish — Burden of a National Shrine — ^Neglect and Decay — Speculators — Vain Appeal for Government Purchase — ^Ann Pamela Cunningham Organizes the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union — Contract for Purchase — Campaign for Funds — ^Edward Everett's Work — Possession Given — ^Restoration Begun — ^During the War — Regents, Superintendents, and Other OflScials ..... 254 xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter XXI

Remaking the Home of George Washington— The Summer House— The Old Tomb— Deer Park— Gifts of Protective Land^ —North Lodge Gates— Sea Wall— Garden, Screen, and Ha-Ha Walls— A Colonial Ruin Bought to Get Colonial Brick— Tunnelling to Prevent Mount Vernon from Slipping — Earliest Shingles Still Shelter the Mansion— Flagging from St. Bees — Precautions Extraordinary—If Mount Vernon Were Destroyed— Historic Relics— When Naval Vessels Pass the Tomb of the Father of His Country —A Symbol— The End 264

Appendix

A

The Title to Mount Vernon 281

Table of General Washington's Visits to Mount Vernon While President 283

C

Tables of Those Born, Married, and Buried at Mount Vernon 284

D

Regents and Vice-Regents of the Moimt Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, Since Its Organization . . . . 287

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Mount Vernon Mansion Frontispiece

lACIHG PAGE

Lawrence Washington 16

Admiral Vernon . . 20

The Old Brick Barn 22

The Corner Stone of Mount Vernon 26

Survey of Mount Vernon 28

The Ruins of the Old Tomb 32

The Old Tomb 32

George Washington in the Uniform of a Virginia Colonel . 52

Mrs. George Washington 60

The South Lane 66

The Kitchen Fireplace 68

The North Lane 76

A Map of General Washington's Farm 78

A Lane Below the Old Brick Barn 84

The West Lodge Gates 92

The River Shore 92

The West Parlor 96

The Family Dining Room 96

The Music Room 98

The Sitting Room 98

Pohick Church 110

North and South Lanes 112

The Floor Plans of Mount Vernon 128

The Great Window in the Banquet Hall 132

The North Colonnade 140

The Central Hall or Passage 144

A Vista Through the Portico 148

XV xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PACING PAGE

*Samuel Vaughan's Plan of Mount Vernon 1^"

Box Maze and Greenhouses ... 1^^

The Walled Vegetable Garden 154

The Family at Mount Vernon . 156

West Front of Mount Vernon Mansion 162

The School House . . 164

Houdon's Bust of George Washington 172

The Banquet Room 174

The Library 180

Facsimile of a Letter from George Washington .... 188

Mount Vernon Mansion 192

The Mansion and Some of the Small Buildings .... 208

Eleanor ("Nellie") Parke Custis 212

George Washington's Bedroom 220

Martha Washington's Bedroom 228

John Augustine Washington 236

Bushrod Washington 236

Jane Washington and Members of Her Family .... 246

George Washington's Tomb 250

Ann Pamela Cunningham 256

Mount Vernon Mansion as It Appeared Just Before the Civil

The South Ha-Ha Wall 266

A Section of the Lichen Covered Garden Wall .... 272

Skeleton Model of Mount Vernon Mansion 276

♦Washington in a letter to Samuel Vaughan, dated 12th November, 1787, said: "The letter without date, with which you were pleased to honor me, accompanied by a plan of this seat, came to my hands by the last post. . . . The plan describes with accuracy the houses, walks, and shrubs, except in the front of the lawn, west of the courtyard. There the plan differs from the original. In the former you have closed the prospect with trees along the walk to the gate; whereas in the latter the trees terminate with two mounds of earth, one on each side, on which grow weeping willows, leaving an open and full view of the distant woods. The mounds are sixty yards apart. I mention this, because it is the only departure from the original."

Introduction

To Dr. Johnson has been attributed the epigram, *'The most difficult thing in the world, sir, is to get possession of a fact"; and to few perhaps does this come home with more force than to those who undertake to extract the truth from the traditions and glamour of romance that have grown around so much of the life and customs of Colonial America. The gratification, perhaps the pride, engendered by the accounts that have come down to us of the imposing dignity of the lives of our Colonial ancestors and the elegance of their homes has sometimes received a rude shock as we have gazed for the first time on the "Mansions" in which they lived; and while, on the one hand, this is true; on the other, it is equally true that some of those old worthies whose names are scarce remembered, and who may perhaps " have sealed their letters with their thumbs," are shown by careful research to have possessed homes as stately as any, and to have contributed as prodigally to Virginia's reputation for hospitality and heroism as did those whose names have gone sounding down the ages; and as it is the task of the faithful historian to make "history as written accord with history as performed," so in the field he has chosen to occupy, this is what Mr. Wilstach has endeavored to accomplish, and I believe he has achieved it. f Much of what, in the past, has been said and written

INTRODUCTION

about Mount Vernon has been based on tradition, and while Mr. Wilstaeh's careful investigation has confirmed many of these traditions, some of what has been believed has been found not entirely accurate, and his patient research has brought to light much that was not known. It was not an easy task, and those who feel an abiding interest in the home of the Father of his Country, and who appreciate faithful endeavor, will recognize the debt due the author for his patient labor of love.

Chapter I

Mount Vernon's Beginnings— The Doeg Indians— John Smith's Account of the Upper Tidewater Potomac— Leonard Calvert at Piscataway— Early Royal Grants of the Northern Neck—The English Washingtons — First Washingtons in Vu-ginia — ^Washingtons and Fairfaxes Move Up the Potomac —Title to Hunting Creek Tract— The First Dwelling— The Fire — ^Lawrence Washington.

MOUNT VERNON, the home and last resting place of George Washington, is situated on the Virginia shore of the Potomac River, in Fairfax Coimty, fourteen miles south of the Capital of the United States.

Its wide fame, the deep affection in which it is held, and the familiarity given it by written and painted history, make it difficult for the mind to erase the picture of Washington's home and think of its parked heights as virgin forest overlooking a sailless, undiscovered river. Yet less than one hundred and fifty years before it came into his hands, so far as is positively known, white man had never seen it.

In Mount Vernon's early history events punctuated long series of years. The first title holders to these hUls and meadows were the Doeg Indians, a tribe of the Algonquia race. Their remains have been unearthed on the rising ground near the river in very recent years. Their possession was secure and undisputed, when one day, around the broad bend to the west, there appeared a strange sail on an open barge. As it drew nearer it revealed a company of fifteen men with curiously unfamiliar faces, not the copper red of the native, but pale like none they had ever seen. It was John Smith and his hardy adventurers from Jamestown sailing by on their quest of "the head of this water you conceive to be endless." They pass again, out with the current and the tide, and history is silent about the upper waters of the Potomac for over a quarter of a century.

Then in 1634 the white sails of the white man appeared again, up with the tide and fair wind from the faraway Chesapeake. This time there were two ships, the Dove and a pinnace, belonging to Leonard Calvert. This first Governor of Maryland came with his two hundred pioneers to establish a colony on the eastern shore of the Potomac under the royal charter granted by King Charles II to Leonard's brother Cecil, Lord Baltimore. They anchored only a mile above the future site of Mount Vernon, where the Piscataway meets the Potomac under the heights which are to be first the Warburton Manor lands of Neighbor Diggs and later are to be crowned with the gray' bastions of Fort Washington.

Calvert found little encouragement from the Indians, and the beauty of the spot did not weigh against its isolation, over one hundred miles from the "centre of civilization " in the lower waters of the James. He, too, sailed down river to a permanent haven for his followers near the mouth of the Potomac, almost opposite the point on the Virginia shore where, a century later, was to be born the boy who would become the liberator of his country.

The record of Calvert's cruise to the upper Potomac is followed by another silence, this time for nearly forty years, for all that is told of explorations or settlements on the scene of this story.

In the meantime there are fugitive glimpses of nearby activities of the white men, hunters and trappers, sometimes outposts who guard the advancing frontier from the receding Indian. It seems always to have been a paradise for lovers of the rod and gun. Smith found the river country "much frequented with wolves, bears, deer, and other wild beasts .... in the course of our joumeyings we also met with a few beavers, otters, bears, martens, and minks; and in divers places there was such an abundance of fish, lying quite thick, with their heads above the water, as our barge drove through them, that for want of a net we attempted to catch them with a frying-pan, but we found it a bad instrument to catch fish with." While the brave captain was exploring above some shoals, "It chanced by reason of the ebb-tide, that our barge grounded on one of them, and there we must abide until the next tide came to float us. As I was looking in the waters, I espied many fishes lurking in the reeds, and for sport and pastime, to while away an hour, I amused myself by nailing them to the ground with my sword. This set all my crew following my example, and by this means we caught more fish in an hour than we could eat in a day."

But civilization is on the way. Farther down river the clearings extend, advancing with the advancing century. The forests translate themselves into cabins, the young trees into snake fences, and soon the inexhaustible clay gets itself baked into bricks for the planters' mansions, which are held together with the finest of all mortar made of the burnt oyster shells taken from the beds of the tidal "creeks," which give endless diversity to the shores of the lower Potomac. Later, when time has aged these mansions and the restorer comes to repair their century-old walls, he will find that it is more frequently the bricks which yield and crack under the pick and hammer than the oyster-shell mortar.

Until the early seventies the tracts along the west bank of the Potomac from Dogue's Creek to Little Hunting Creek were without recorded proprietors. Larger tracts of which this was a part were then granted, some say by the Crown and others say by the Royal Governor in Virginia. The recorders and later chroniclers seem to contribute much confusion. Perhaps they are right, and the seventeenth century state of Northern Neck titles was confusing.

Certain it is that Charles II in exile, without throne or crown, did grant to two tricky favorites, the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpepper, "to be held by them for thirty-one years at a yearly rental of forty shillings," all the lands between the Rappahannock and the Potomac and known as the Northern Neck. Later this grant was withdrawn to be extended again on a larger scale to include "all that tract and territory, region and dominion of land and water commonly called Virginia."

Here was strong meat indeed for the stomach of freedmen. It would not digest and was one of the causes which begat Bacon's Rebellion. In spite of resentment their title seems to have been sustained, for Arlington conveyed his share of the proprietorship of Virginia to Culpepper, and the title deeds to Mount Vernon begin with a grant from Lord Culpepper "in the twenty seventh year of the reign of our Sovereigne Lord, King Charles ye Second, Anno Domini 1674," to Lieutenant Colonel John Washington and Colonel Nicholas Spencer, of five thousand acres "scituate, lying and being in the County of Stafford" — which county had been cut ofif from Westmoreland and from a part of which Prince William and Fairfax counties were later created — " in the fifreshes of the Pottomeek River and neare opposite to Piscataway, Indian towne of Mariland." This Washington, known as John the Emigrant, was the great-grandfather of George of Mount Vernon, and was the first of George Washington's forebears to cross from England to America.

The greatness of George Washington inflamed the imagination of his early biographers. If we cannot abide by their accuracy it is possible to be amused by their invention. One of them traces his line back through generations and centuries of noble and valiant ancestors, until he brings up at the throne of the hearty Scandinavian deity, Odin, "the god who gives victory." The name Washington is traced from de Wessynton, to Wessynton without the de, to Wasshington and Washington. As last written it early appeared as the name of a parish in the County of Durham in England. The forebears of our Washington trace in a direct line through their namesakes of Sulgrave Manor, Northamptonshire, to John Washington of Warton, Lancashire. Beyond him is conjecture. After him the Ime is authentic. His son, the grantee of Sulgrave, was named Lawrence, and his name, like his father's, reappears frequently in future generations. In the coatof-arms engraved on this Lawrence's tomb in the church at Sulgrave is found the three spur rowels above the red bars on a white field, which appeared as early as 1360 in the seal of William de Wessyngton, and which are popularly regarded as having suggested the stars and stripes of the flag of the United States.

Lawrence of Sulgrave fell upon hard times and he was obliged to give up his manor house, whereupon his good friend and neighbor, Lord Spencer, in 1606 built him the house in the village of Little Brington where he lived diu-ing the remaining years of his life. As already indicated, the names of Washington and Spencer are to be joined again, in another transaction involving a home, but in Virginia next time, in title deeds on which is foimded the proprietorship of Moimt Vernon itself.

Washington House, as it has been known and pointed out to pilgrims these hundred years, was afterward occupied by Lawrence's brother Robert and his family. After Robert's death Lawrence's widow came again, and lived there until 1636, when she went into Essex to make her home with her son, another Lawrence, who was rector of Purleigh. This son, the Reverend Lawrence Washington, M.A., married Amphillis Rhodes and their issue was six sons and daughters, among whom was John the Emigrant, and his brother, third of the name of Lawrence, and a sister, who both followed him to America.

At this time England was in civil convulsion. Charles II was in banishment, and the Puritans of the eleven years' commonwealth were carrying government with a high hand. The Washington family were committed to the royalist cause, not merely by their holding of the Rectory of Purleigh, but by the traditional sympathies inbred by generations of devotion to the crown. Politics deprived the father of his parish in 1643, and, casting about for opportunity and ease from petty persecution, his son John, and later his son Lawrence and the young men's sister, crossed the seas to the colony of Virginia as recited above.

John reached Virginia about 1658. He did not come at once to the upper end of tidewater Potomac. His first plantation was in Westmoreland County between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, and it gave his name to the parish. Soon he married for his second wife Miss Ann Pope, and, where Bridges Creek meets the Potomac seventy miles down river from the present capital, he built a modest dwelling, later named Wakefield. Here were bom their eldest son, Lawrence, and this Lawrence's eldest son, Augustine.

The name of Washington appeared continually in colonial chronicles both of Burgesses and vestry. John Washington, the Emigrant, was a member of the House of Burgesses, and the recurrence of his name in connection with the business of the Assembly indicates that he took no unimportant part in its work. This was at WUliamsburg. On Wakefield plantation, however, so far away from the gay little capital and so near the frontier, life during the last half of the seventeenth century was even and uneventful, save for brushes with the Indians and the struggle to force the forest back and make the good red clay yield its harvest.

The family evidently rose to some estate, for, after a little more than fifty years in Virginia, it is able to send Augustine, John's grandson, to England to be educated. On his return he married Jane, daughter of Caleb Butler, of Westmoreland, who bravely wrote "Esquire" after his name. They had four children, but of them only Lawrence and Augustine lived beyond childhood. Jane Washington died in 1728. In less than two years Augustine married again, this time Mary, youngest daughter of Colonel Joseph Ball. He brought her to his Bridges Creek plantation overlooking the lower Potomac, and soon the first blessing of this union was recorded in the old quaint quarto Bible, now among the treasures at Mount Vernon, in these terms :

It was a fruitful union. George's younger brothers were Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles, and his sisters were Elisabeth, who appears later as Betty, and Mildred, who died in childhood.

Other lands than Wakefield had come iato the hands of the great-grandfather of Lawrence and his half-brother George, as already noted in the grant from Lord Culpepper, the crown grantee. This five-thousand-acre holding of John Washington and Nicholas Spencer was not divided until 1690. Meantime John died and in his will bequeathed his haK of this tract to his son Lawrence. The division thirteen years later gave him the eastern half, facing Little Hunting Creek, and the Spencer family took the western half, facing Dogue Run.

This Lawrence in his will bequeathed "all my land in

♦Washington was born February 1 1 old style, February 22 new style. See page 217.

Stafford County, lying upon Hunting Creek . . . by estimation 2,500 acres," to his daughter Mildred. It has been stated that "Mildred died in infancy, and the Hunting Creek estate became the joint possession of the widow and two sons, until it fell to the survivor of them all, Augustine, about the year 1730." Another historian dismisses this transfer with the comfortable though indefinite remark that "we find. Augustine Washington ... in possession of one half of the above 5,000 acres in 1740."

The transfer from Mildred to Augustine is definitely accoimted for by a deed of May 26, 1726, from Mildred and her husband, Roger Gregory, to Augustine Washington, "her brother," for "a moietie or half of five thousand acres formerly Lay'd Out for CoUo Nicholas Spencer and the father of Capt Lawrence Washington Bounded as follows Begining by the River Side at the Mouth of Little Hunting Creek and Extending up the said Creek according to the several courses and Meanders thereof nine hundred Eighty and Six Poles to a mark'd A Comer Tree standing on the West side of the South Branch being the maia branch of said Hunting Creek From there by a lyne of Mark'd trees west eighteen Degrees South across a Woods to the Dividing Lyne as formerly made Between Madam Francis Spencer and Captain Lawrence Washington and from hence W by the said Lyne to ye River and with the River and all the Courses and Meanders of the said River to the Mouth of the Creek afor'sd."

Augustine Washington moved up river and established his family on his Hunting Creek lands within a short time after George's birth, for Augustine's name appears as vestryman of Truro Parish in 1735. Accompanying the Washingtons came their friend William Fairfax, colonial agent of his cousin Lord Fairfax in England, on whose lands he settled, nearby his friends.

The Fairfax estate was a long peninsula of nearly three thousand acres on the west side of Dogue Creek, and it was one of the finest set estates on the river. Its waterfront measured, by all its "corses and meanders," nearly ten miles. The high front jutted out into the deepest point of the river channel, and the creeks, which flanked it east and west, made it possible to enclose the entire acreage with little more than one mile of fence on its western side. On the glorious promontory overlooking the river William Fairfax built Belvoir, a great house destined to be the scene of much that was significant in the lives of both Lawrence Washington and his young brother George.