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Official document regarding the property of Lord Fairfax.

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Title

Official document regarding the property of Lord Fairfax.

Description

"Lord Fairfax had arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1747 with the intention of spending the remainder of his life on his Northern Neck proprietary. He went to stay with his cousin and agent, William Fairfax, at Belvoir on the Potomac, the neck of land lying immediately below Mount Vernon. Lawrence Washington had married William Fairfax's eldest daughter, Ann, in August, 1743, and in the resulting intimacy between Belvoir and Mount Vernon, Lawrence's young brother George was included. It was thus that George met Lord Fairfax at Belvoir in the summer of 1747 and was promised employment as a surveyor on the manors Lord Fairfax was planning to lay out beyond Blue Ridge. It was on that duty that Washington set out in the spring of 1748.

His companion was George William Fairfax, eldest son of the Belvoir household, who was eight years Washington's senior and with whom thenceforth Washington maintained an uninterrupted friendship for nearly forty years. George William Fairfax had come to Virginia in the spring of 1746, after being educated in England, to take over his father's agency in Northern Neck. Before setting out on this journey to initiate the young Washington into wilderness life, he had himself had a considerable experience in such adventures: he was one of the party engaged in arduous survey of the Northern Neck back line in the summer of 1746, when he had carved his initials in a tree at the head spring of Potomac; and throughout 1747 had been engaged in similar work in the Shenandoah Valley. It was only a few months after this journey with Washington that he was married, at Williamsburg, while serving in the Assembly as the representative of that frontier community (Frederick) wither we here see him again bound."

Creator

Lord Fairfax.

Date

July 3, 1729

Format

Single page, 12 3/4 inches by 15 7/8 inches.

Language

eng

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  1. Fairfax.jpg