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Show GEORGE WASHINGTON : 1 v . v . t . ..... - .. ... ..y ..... "Illustrious man, before whom ali borrowed greatness sinks into insignificance." Charles James Fox. GOES BACK TO 1 657 Washington Family Was One of j the Earliest to Settle in Colony of Virginia. THE first Washington to land in , the new world was Col. John i Washington, who came from near Beverly, England, in 1057. This was only about GO years later than the Jamestown settlement. This Colonel Washington, who was a roan of great influence in the infant colony, was the great-grandfather of General Washington and the first owner of the tract now known as Mount Vernon. lie brought over with him u hundred immigrants and he, wilh his partner, Nicholas Spencer, received from Thomas Lord Culpeper a grant of 5,000 acres of land situated on the Potomac between Epsewasson and Little Hunting creek. Col. John Washington left 2,fi00 acres of this tract that part including fillip i , ' N 1 - 5 i Tomb of Washington's Father. ! Mount Vernon to his eldest son Law i rence. j The son of this Laurence Wushiiig- j ton was Augustine, the father of lieu. George Washington. Augustine look I his bride, Mary Jail, to his home at ! Wakefield, in Westmoreland. His sis ter, Mildred, inherited the Mount er-non er-non property, but oi. the death of her husband, linger Gregory, she sold n to her brother Augustine. And it was ! to this same place that the family were j removed in 1734, when George was a i baby of but two years of age. riere he toddled about in his third and fourth yeafs. It is now believed thnt Augustine. George's father, built the first home fit Mount Vernon on what is the site of the present mansion. Its beautiful situation sit-uation would naturally lend itself to the location of a home. About two miles from the mansion house of today to-day is the site of an old mill, known to have been built by this same Augustine Augus-tine Washington. That mill was on the banks of the Epsewasson creek. The walls, which were laid in limestone, lime-stone, began to crumble buck in the sixties and the farmers in the vicinity hauled away some of the stone. This mill was in actual use for 50 years by General Washington, and so superior was the quality of the Hour lie .ground that it was admitted to English Eng-lish markets without inspection. The huge brick barn covered with ivy one sees at Mount Vernon today was built by Augustine Washington also. Here baby George no doubt rode on the back of the plow horses and climbed into the farm wagons just as country boys do today. But in 1739 a tire destroyed the house and Augustine Augus-tine moved down to another plantation of his near Fredericksburg. Va. This j place was known as Pine Grove. |