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by Douglas Southall Freeman


  Back George went to his work. Now that he was buying land, cold and adverse weather were less of a deterrent to surveying. Not until November 26 did Washington make his last survey west of the mountains for that season. This done, George rode back over the Blue Ridge, but he was not quite through with his investments for the year. On Bullskin Creek were 456 acres of James McCracken’s that would make a most desirable purchase. As soon as George was at Mount Vernon and could arrange the details, he paid McCracken £45, took a deed, and promised to tender the balance of £77 within a few months. George duly met this second payment to McCracken and could list the farm as his unencumbered own. Surveying was profitable! Besides a handsome income, it had yielded him 1459 acres of good land, part of which he soon leased to a tenant.

  George found the household at Mount Vernon busy with a different balance-sheet. While he had been absent in the Valley, his sister-in-law Nancy had given birth to her fourth child, another girl. The new baby was named Sarah, in honor of her grandmother Fairfax. If Lawrence was disappointed that the child was a girl, no record survives. Nancy was young and strong enough to bear him other children, but the condition of the health of Lawrence raised more acutely than ever the question whether he would live to look into the face of a boy who would bear his name and inherit his property. George must be, in a sense, son as well as younger brother.

  Lawrence’s work that winter of 1750-51 was not a sort to improve his physical condition. In November Thomas Lee, president of the Ohio Company, came to the end of his career; the direction of much of the business of the company devolved on Lawrence Washington. Harassment over the affairs of the Ohio Company and a further decline in health forced Lawrence to return to the Warm Springs early in 1751. George preceded or escorted him. While Lawrence “took the cure” and told German settlers about the riches of the Ohio country, George undertook the usual round of surveys in Frederick. By March 26 Lawrence was ready to leave.

  Travel was more and more difficult for Lawrence. Although he remained courageous, it did not appear wise to subject him to another winter in Virginia. A few months in a balmy climate might stay his malady and perhaps restore his health. Barbados Island had a reputation as a haven for persons with diseases of the lungs. Lawrence could not take Nancy there with him; she could not leave her baby. If Lawrence was to make the journey and to have companionship, which was almost essential, the arrangement made for the visits to the springs must be repeated; George must accompany his half-brother.

  In a measure the voyage would be a fascinating experience for a young man who once had thought he would be a sailor. Financially, long absence from Virginia would involve the loss of the autumn season of surveying and the sacrifice of the chance of finding some new bargains in frontier lands. No hint of any balancing of loss against gain or of cost against duty appears in anything George is known to have said then or afterward. Family obligation came first; Lawrence needed his company. That was enough. Everything else could wait.

  Their vessel left the Potomac September 28, 1751, and by October 4 had gone far to the southeast of the Virginia capes and was standing eastward in the latitude of the Bermudas. At the end of the voyage, beating inshore and entering shallow Carlisle Bay was slow work but was completed November 3. Lawrence and George went ashore to a tavern in Bridgetown, the principal settlement on the island. Arrangements were made for an examination of Lawrence the next day by Dr. William Hilary, a physician of much experience in treating diseases of the lungs.

  George must have waited in affectionate anxiety as Dr. Hilary talked with Lawrence on the fourth, and he must have felt relief when he heard the physician’s conclusion: Lawrence’s disease was not so deeply seated that it could not be cured. This encouragement led the two young men to start in quest of lodgings, which the doctor urged them to take outside the town. As there were no inns or taverns in the rural parts of the island, inquiry had to be made at private homes. No suitable quarters were found that evening; but if this was a disappointment to Lawrence, the ride was exciting to his younger brother. George was almost overwhelmed by the beauty of the tropical landscape. Letter writing on the sixth and much hospitality on the seventh were followed the next day by conclusion of a bargain for board and lodging at the house of Captain Crofton, commander of Fort James. The price was outrageously high—£15 a month exclusive of liquors and washing—but to George the site was almost ideal. It was close to the water and not more than a mile from the town. “The prospect,” George wrote, “is extensive by land and pleasant by sea, as we command the prospect of Carlisle Bay and all the shipping in such manner that none can go in or out without being open to our view.”

  The delights of the view were equalled by the cordiality of the residents of the island. Except for the Governor, Henry Grenville, who kept himself aloof from nearly all society on the island, each of the dignitaries seemed anxious to entertain the Virginians. One of George’s visits was to Fort James, which he viewed as critically as if he had been a military engineer. “It’s pretty strongly fortified,” he wrote in his diary, “and mounts about 36 guns within the fortifications, but [has] two fascine batteries mg. 51.”

  On the morning of November 17 the younger Washington felt a curious rigor and then had a high fever. Before evening he was seized with a violent headache and with pains in his back and loins. The next day the debilitating symptoms were the same. By the twentieth, red spots were discernible on the young man’s forehead and among the roots of his hair. In a few hours, these spots became thickly set papules. George had the smallpox. He was busy with his painful battle against the disease until about the twenty-eighth. Then the “suppurative fever” diminished and disappeared. Soon the scabs began to fall off. Underneath were reddish brown spots. George knew that these would leave “pits” which he would carry with him through life, but he had won the fight that almost every man of his generation expected to have to wage. On December 12 Washington was dismissed by his physician.

  George and Lawrence attended a succession of dinners every day, except one, between the thirteenth and the twentieth. In private, discussion concerned their own plans. Lawrence was discouraged. He gave no indication of sudden or swift decline, but he had not gained in health and he greatly missed Nancy and their little girl. The sameness of the climate depressed him. No diversion was offered other than dancing, which was supposed to bring on yellow fever. Although not quite prepared to call his visit a failure, he was close to a decision that if he did not improve soon, he would go to the Bermudas. If that did not help, he would return home and try once more the dry air of Frederick County. All this would involve more months away from Mount Vernon. During that time, George could be of small assistance to his brother; he might as well return to Virginia. This was agreed. On December 21 George said farewell to Lawrence and the friends he had made on the island.

  After landing at Yorktown, January 28, 1752, George hired a horse and rode over to Williamsburg to call on the Governor and present letters entrusted to him. Governor Dinwiddie had gone to Green Spring, but he was expected back later in the day. When the Governor returned he received George cordially, invited him to stay and dine, and inquired concerning the health of Lawrence. It was George’s first chat with a man he was to know much better. From Williamsburg, George returned to Yorktown. There he found Col. John Lewis, who had come to town, along with the gentry of that region, to witness a great main of cocks. The two left together in Lewis’s chariot and rode to that gentleman’s home. Thence George went to Hobbs Hole and on to Layton’s Ferry. It probably was on February 5 or 6 that he reached Mount Vernon and reported to Nancy on Lawrence’s condition and plans and on his own experiences.

  Besides giving him some acquaintance with the economy of the island, George’s visit to Barbados had shown him something of the markets offered Virginia in the British West Indies. More personally, he had demonstrated on the island what he probably had no reason to doubt—that he could go into new society and, when he accepted an invitation, could
so conduct himself that he received new invitations from guests he met. That was not the sole gain from the voyage. The worst feature of the stay on the island proved to be the best: That pain, that burning fever, that ugly eruption of smallpox had left George immune. He could go now to frontier, camp, or barrack without fear. The ancient foe could not strike him down.

  The six months that followed George’s return from Barbados were crowded with incident. After rest and visits to kinspeople, he went to Frederick County in March and undertook new surveys that occupied his time until nearly the first of May. In gross receipts, the work was as profitable as ever, but it was subject, at least in theory, to a deduction not previously made. Under the charter of 1693, which gave the College of William and Mary exclusive authority in Virginia to commission county surveyors, the institution received one-sixth of the fees those officers collected. Lord Fairfax and his surveyors apparently had ignored the law. Governor Dinwiddie tactfully admonished Lord Fairfax to have the suveyors procure commissions and pay the College the stipulated one-sixth of their receipts. The first of these two requirements did not trouble George, but compliance with the College’s share of his fees would reduce his gross income by 162/3 per cent. In spite of this, George’s thrift and diligence yielded money enough in 1752 for him to increase his holdings on Bullskin Creek. Both he and Lawrence regarded that part of Frederick County as particularly desirable.

  On his return from Frederick, George was stricken with pleurisy. This embarrassed him and irritated him because, at that particular season he was engaged in what he considered a most important negotiation. George was in love. From early youth he had been confident in all his work and all his pleasure, so long as men were involved; with girls, he must have been self-conscious. Occasionally he wrote vague, sighing poetry to them, or about them. More direct associations had not been lacking, though they had not been taken too seriously. He had sighed over a “Low Land Beauty” when he still was too young to marry, and he had found attraction in an unidentified “Sally” when he was a little older. The girl with whom he was most frequently thrown at Belvoir and at Mount Vernon was Mary Cary, younger sister of the tantalizing Sally Cary, whom George William Fairfax had married. He might have fallen in love with Mary had he not been in a tangle of affection for other girls.

  Now, in the spring of 1752, he turned seriously in another direction. At Naylor’s Hole in Richmond Country lived William Fauntleroy. Faunt-leroy was of the established, dominant class, though not of the wealthiest or most eminent. By his first wife, Elizabeth, he had a daughter of the same name. Familiarly “Betsy,” this girl was in her sixteenth year when she dazzled the eyes of George. As befitted a young gentleman who had examined critically the fortifications of Barbados, he undertook the siege of Betsy’s heart by formal approaches. Repulsed in his first attack, he had to wait until he had recovered from the pleurisy to make a second. Diplomacy and persistence alike were unrewarded. Betsy’s answer again was in the negative, so strongly negative that George abandoned the siege.

  If George felt grief over his rejection by Betsy, he now had a deeper, absorbing concern over his elder half-brother. As previously planned, Lawrence went to Bermuda. His letters from that island indicated that he had moved too early in the year. The chill of the spring had renewed the worst of his symptoms. After a time he showed some improvement but, as he wrote, he was “like a criminal condemned, though not without hopes of reprieve.” Lawrence’s next letter was grimmer in tone: “The unhappy state of health which I labor under makes me uncertain as to my return. If I grow worse I shall hurry home to my grave; if better, I shall be induced to stay here longer to complete a cure.” Sometime prior to June 16 Lawrence landed from Bermuda—with his death sentence written on his face. He knew his end was at hand and proceeded hurriedly to put his affairs in such order as was possible. “In consideration of love and affection,” he transferred to George his share in the reversion under his father’s will of the three lots in Fredericksburg, and he had his mother and his younger half-brothers witness the paper. On June 20 he hastily completed and signed his will; and on July 26, 1752, he breathed his painful last. George had the sombre duty of arranging for the funeral and for the construction of a burial vault. His, too, was much of the early work in the execution of Lawrence’s will.

  The master of Mount Vernon bequeathed his wife a life interest in that property and in his lands on Bullskin Creek, together with half his slaves; and he provided that all his estate, exclusive of specific bequests, should descend to his infant daughter, Sarah. Were Sarah to die without issue, part of her estate was to go to her mother, if alive, and part of her lands were to be divided equally among Lawrence’s brother and half-brother. George was to share equally in the real estate that was to go to Lawrence’s brothers in the event of Sarah’s childless death. Further, if Sarah died without issue, George was to have Mount Vernon and all of Lawrence’s other real estate in Fairfax County when Nancy’s life ended. Executors named by Lawrence were Col. William Fairfax, George Fairfax, Nathaniel Chapman, John Carlyle and Austin and George Washington.

  The settlement of Lawrence’s affairs was slow and complicated. It was December 23 when the inventory was completed and was copied by the young surveyor. A sale of personal effects was held that month, when George, one of numerous purchasers, bought live-stock to the value of £33. Final balancing of his accounts with the estate of his brother was to be delayed thereafter for more than three years.

  Lawrence’s death involved the transfer of his varied duties as a trustee of Alexandria, as a stockholder in the Ohio Company and as Adjutant of the Colony. This last office either had been vacated before Lawrence’s death or else had been held with the understanding that Lawrence would resign when a successor was chosen. To seek to succeed his brother was, for George, a natural ambition. Even before Lawrence’s death it had been understood that the adjutancy would be divided among three men, to each of whom would be assigned a district. George knew that if Col. William Fitzhugh would accept it, that gentleman could have direction of the district in which the Northern Neck was to be included, but, as his second wife had large property in Maryland, Fitzhugh had moved his residence to that Colony.

  George had been anxious to know if this change of abode meant that Fitzhugh would forego the office of Adjutant of the Northern Neck. A short time before Lawrence’s return, George had ridden to Williamsburg, had seen the Governor, and then had gone to Maryland to consult Fitzhugh. Apparently Fitzhugh would accept the office if he could discharge the greater part of his duties from the Maryland shore and, when circumstance admitted, would erect a house in Virginia and reside there “sometimes.” Fitzhugh gave George a letter in which he told the Governor of the terms he would have to impose if he took the office. George went back to Ferry Farm, wrote the Governor of his visit and enclosed Fitzhugh’s letter.

  George had pending, in a short time, application of a different sort. On September 1, 1752, a new lodge of Masons held its first meeting in Fredericksburg and soon attracted members. Under Daniel Campbell as Master, a class of five was initiated on November 4. George, one of this group, paid his initiation fee of £2 3s. as an Entered Apprentice.

  Two days afterward, the situation created by the death of Adjutant Lawrence Washington was reviewed by the Council of Virginia. Governor and Council agreed that one man could not discharge the duties of the office. Virginia consequently was divided, not into three districts, but into four—each of which was to have an Adjutant. For the frontier, Thomas Bentley was chosen; the “Middle Neck” between the Rappahannock and the York was assigned to George Muse; the Northern Neck was made the district of William Fitzhugh. To George was allotted the southern district, the most remote and least interesting. It extended from Princess Anne County to the western fringe of settlement and covered the entire region between James River and the North Carolina boundary. It was a distinction for George to be named Adjutant before he was twenty-one, and to be allowed pay of £100 per annum. On Februa
ry 1, 1753, he presented his commission to the Court of Spotsylvania and took the various oaths; but, meantime, he sought and procured the influence of the powerful William Nelson for the vacancy that might occur if Fitzhugh found himself unable to serve.

  When George took the oaths as Adjutant, he became officially Major Washington. He might have regarded the title as a present for his twenty-first birthday. How well he had advanced during the ten years that had passed after his father’s death! The younger son of a second marriage, he had received as his inheritance ten slaves, the small Ferry Farm, three Fredericksburg lots and half of the Deep Run tract. He now had a remunerative profession as County Surveyor and from his own earnings he had bought ample clothing and good equipage. In the rich Shenandoah Valley he held two thousand acres of excellent land. If he counted his moiety of the Deep Run tract and what remained of Ferry Farm, he already was the owner of 4291 acres of unencumbered land and thus was in the class of the larger proprietors. With the advantage of immunity to smallpox, he could travel freely. He was strong and was able, without complaint or great discomfort, to sleep out of doors, in his clothing and on the ground. The softness of 1748 was gone, but without the loss of his love of good apparel and comfortable living. Fixed in his methodical habits, he kept his accounts carefully. If his English grammar and composition still were poor, he was progressing in these, too. Socially, he was capable of entering the best of Colonial society. He could dance, and he had proficiency in cards and billiards. While not particularly accurate as a marksman, he squared accounts by the superlative excellence of his horsemanship. Now, with the thoroughness that marked his every performance, he was to learn the duties of District Adjutant of Virginia.

 

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