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George Washington As A Colonial Magnate
George Washington As A Colonial Magnate
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Kindle version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1908. Contains lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the last 100 years.
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It is a mistake to think of the early American Washington’s as county magnates. Had George Washington died before the battle of Bunker Hill he would still have been the most distinguished man that his family had produced, whether in Europe or America. The Washington’s were of ancient and gentle blood, but the two brothers who emigrated to America in 1657 were not men of great wealth or distinction, and when they purchased land in Westmore-land County they found themselves in a region that had been settled by men of substance for almost half a century. John, the ancestor of George, married Anne Pope, and took up his residence on Bridges Creek, where he became an extensive planter, a local magistrate and a member of the House of Burgesses. His house, however, the one in which his great-grandson was born, was small and simple, with four rooms on the ground floor, an attic immediately above and a deep sloping roof. The early home of the Lees, which is only a few miles away, although far from imposing, is much larger than this dwelling of John Washington the immigrant, just as Arlington is a far greater house than Mt. Vernon. The Washington homestead on Bridges Creek served the family well enough in the next generation, and here ap¬parently were born the children of Augustine Washington's first wife, the half-brothers and half-sisters of George. Of the second wife's children, George alone was born at the Westmoreland County homestead, for in his early infancy the family removed to Stafford County, and occupied a house which seems to have been in size and simplicity the counterpart of George's birthplace. Nothing now remains of this building save a few bricks of the foundation. The house stood on a rise overlooking a meadow bounded by the Rappahannock. This meadow was George Washington's first play-ground, and a neighboring "old field" school, kept by the parish sexton, a tenant of his father's, was his first place of formal education.
Read excerpt -
It is a mistake to think of the early American Washington’s as county magnates. Had George Washington died before the battle of Bunker Hill he would still have been the most distinguished man that his family had produced, whether in Europe or America. The Washington’s were of ancient and gentle blood, but the two brothers who emigrated to America in 1657 were not men of great wealth or distinction, and when they purchased land in Westmore-land County they found themselves in a region that had been settled by men of substance for almost half a century. John, the ancestor of George, married Anne Pope, and took up his residence on Bridges Creek, where he became an extensive planter, a local magistrate and a member of the House of Burgesses. His house, however, the one in which his great-grandson was born, was small and simple, with four rooms on the ground floor, an attic immediately above and a deep sloping roof. The early home of the Lees, which is only a few miles away, although far from imposing, is much larger than this dwelling of John Washington the immigrant, just as Arlington is a far greater house than Mt. Vernon. The Washington homestead on Bridges Creek served the family well enough in the next generation, and here ap¬parently were born the children of Augustine Washington's first wife, the half-brothers and half-sisters of George. Of the second wife's children, George alone was born at the Westmoreland County homestead, for in his early infancy the family removed to Stafford County, and occupied a house which seems to have been in size and simplicity the counterpart of George's birthplace. Nothing now remains of this building save a few bricks of the foundation. The house stood on a rise overlooking a meadow bounded by the Rappahannock. This meadow was George Washington's first play-ground, and a neighboring "old field" school, kept by the parish sexton, a tenant of his father's, was his first place of formal education.
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