BUILDING AN ESTATE
Augustine Washington was a planter who owned thousands of acres of land,
most of it unimproved, besides an interest in some small iron works, but
he had been twice married and at his death left two broods of children
to be provided for. George, a younger son--which implied a great deal in
those days of entail and primogeniture--received the farm on the
Rappahannock on which his father lived, amounting to two hundred and
eighty acres, a share of the land lying on Deep Run, three lots in
Frederick, a few negro slaves and a quarter of the residuary estate. He
was also given a reversionary interest in Mount Vernon, bequeathed to
his half-brother Lawrence. The total value of his inheritance was small,
and, as Virginia landed fortunes went, he was left poorly provided for.
Much of Washington's youth was spent with Lawrence at Mount Vernon, and
as an aside it may be remarked here that the main moulding influence in
his life was probably cast by this high-minded brother, who was a
soldier and man of the world. By the time he was sixteen the boy was on
the frontier helping Lord Thomas Fairfax to survey the princely domain
that belonged to his lordship, and received in payment therefor
sometimes as much as a doubloon a day. In 1748 he patented five hundred
fifty acres of wild land in Frederick County, "My Bullskin Plantation"
he usually called it, payment being made by surveying. In 1750 he had
funds sufficient to buy four hundred fifty-six acres of land of one
James McCracken, paying therefor one hundred twelve pounds. Two years
later for one hundred fifteen pounds he bought five hundred fifty-two
acres on the south fork of Bullskin Creek from Captain George Johnston.
In 1757 he acquired from a certain Darrell five hundred acres on Dogue
Run near Mount Vernon, paying three hundred fifty pounds.
It is evident, therefore, that very early he acquired the "land hunger"
to which most of the Virginians of his day were subject, as a heritage
from their English ancestry. In the England of that day, in fact, no
one except a churchman could hope to attain much of a position in the
world unless he was the owner of land, and until the passage of the
great Reform Bill in 1832 he could not even vote unless he held land
worth forty shillings a year. In Virginia likewise it was the landholder
who enjoyed distinction and consideration, who was sent to the House of
Burgesses and was bowed and scraped to as his coach bumped along over
the miserable roads. The movement to cities did not begin until after
the Industrial Revolution, and people still held the healthy notion that
the country was the proper place in which to live a normal human
existence.
In 1752 Lawrence Washington died. As already stated, he was the
proprietor by inheritance of Mount Vernon, then an estate of two
thousand five hundred acres which had been in the Washington family
since 1674, being a grant from Lord Culpeper. Lawrence had fought
against the Spaniards in the conflict sometimes known as the war of
Jenkins's Ear, and in the disastrous siege of Cartagena had served under
Admiral Vernon, after whom he later named his estate. He married Anne
Fairfax, daughter of Sir William Fairfax, and for her built on his
estate a new residence, containing eight rooms, four to each floor, with
a large chimney at each end.
[Illustration: Mount Vernon, Showing Kitchen to the Left and Covered
Way Leading to It]
[Illustration: _From a painting by T.P. Rossiter and L.R. Mignot_ The
Washington Family] Lawrence Washington was the father of four
children, but only an infant daughter, Sarah, survived him, and she died
soon after him. By the terms of his father's and Lawrence's wills George
Washington, after the death of this child, became the ultimate inheritor
of the Mount Vernon estate, but, contrary to the common idea, Anne
Fairfax Washington, who soon married George Lee, retained a life
interest. On December 17, 1754, however, the Lees executed a deed
granting said life interest to George Washington in consideration of an
annual payment during Anne Lee's lifetime of fifteen thousand pounds of
tobacco or the equivalent in current money[1]. Mrs. Lee died in 1761 and
thereafter Washington owned the estate absolutely. That it was by no
means so valuable at that time as its size would indicate is shown by
the smallness of the, rent he paid, never more than four hundred
sixty-five dollars a year. Many eighty-acre farms rent for that much
to-day and even for more.
[1] From entries in Washington's account book we know that this
equivalent in 1755 was £93.15; during each of the next four years it was
£87.10, and for 1760 it was £81.5.
Up to 1759 Washington was so constantly engaged in fighting the French
and Indians that he had little time and opportunity to look after his
private affairs and in consequence they suffered. In 1757 he wrote from
the Shenandoah Valley to an English agent that he should have some
tobacco to sell, but could not say whether he did have or not. His pay
hardly sufficed for his personal expenses and on the disastrous Fort
Necessity and Braddock campaigns he lost his horses and baggage. Owing
to his absence from home, his affairs fell into great disorder from
which they were extricated by a fortunate stroke.
This stroke consisted in his marriage to Martha Custis, relict of the
wealthy Daniel Parke Custis. The story of his wooing the young widow has
been often told with many variations and fanciful embellishments, but of
a few facts we are certain. From a worldly point of view Mrs. Custis was
the most desirable woman in all Virginia, and the young officer, though
not as yet a victor in many battles, had fought gallantly, possessed the
confidence of the Colony and formed a shining exception to most of the
tidewater aristocracy who continued to hunt the fox and guzzle Madeira
while a cruel foe was harrying the western border. Matters moved
forward with the rapidity traditional in similar cases and in about
three weeks and before the Colonel left to join Forbes in the final
expedition against Fort Duquesne the little widow had been wooed and
won. After his return from that expedition Washington resigned his
commission and on the 6th of January, 1759, they were married at her
"White House" on York River and spent their honeymoon at her "Six
Chimney House" in Williamsburg.
The young groom and farmer--as he would now have styled himself--was at
this time not quite twenty-seven years old, six feet two inches high,
straight as an Indian and weighed about one hundred and seventy-five
pounds. His bones and joints were large, as were his hands and feet. He
was wide-shouldered but somewhat flat-chested, neat-waisted but broad
across the hips, with long arms and legs. His skin was rather pale and
colorless and easily burned by the sun, and his hair, a chestnut brown,
he usually wore in a queue. His mouth was large and generally firmly
closed and the teeth were already somewhat defective. His countenance as
a whole was pleasing, benevolent and commanding, and in conversation he
looked one full in the face and was deliberate, deferential and
engaging. His voice was agreeable rather than strong. His demeanor at
all times was composed and dignified, his movements and gestures
graceful, his walk majestic and he was a superb horseman[2].
[2] Adapted from a description written by his comrade-in-arms, George
Mercer.
The bride brought her husband a "little progeny" consisting of two
interesting stepchildren; also property worth about a hundred thousand
dollars, including many negro slaves, money on bond and stock in the
Bank of England. Soon we find him sending certificates of the marriage
to the English agents of the Custis estate and announcing to them that
the management of the whole would be in his hands.
The dower negroes were kept separate from those owned by himself, but
otherwise he seems to have made little distinction between his own and
Mrs. Washington's property, which was now, in fact, by Virginia law his
own. When Martha wanted money she applied to him for it. Now and then in
his cash memorandum books we come upon such entries as, "By Cash to Mrs.
Washington for Pocket Money £4." As a rule, if there were any purchases
to be made, she let George do it and, if we may judge from the long
list of tabby colored velvet gowns, silk hose, satin shoes, "Fashionable
Summer Cloaks & Hatts," and similar articles ordered from the English
agents she had no reason to complain that her husband was niggardly or a
poor provider. If her "Old Man"--for she sometimes called him
that--failed in anything she desired, tradition says that the little
lady was in the habit of taking hold of a button of his coat and hanging
on until he had promised to comply.
He managed the property of the two children with great care and
fidelity, keeping a scrupulous account in a "marble colour'd folio Book"
of every penny received or expended in their behalf and making a yearly
report to the general court of his stewardship. How minute this account
was is indicated by an entry in his cash memorandum book for August 21,
1772: "Charge Miss Custis with a hair Pin mended by C. Turner" one
shilling. Her death (of "Fitts") in 1773 added about ten thousand pounds
to Mrs. Washington's property, which meant to his own.
There can be no question that the fortune he acquired by the Custis
alliance proved of great advantage to him in his future career, for it
helped to make him independent as regards money considerations. He
might never have become the Father of His Country without it. Some of
his contemporaries, including jealous-hearted John Adams, seem to have
realized this, and tradition says that old David Burnes, the crusty
Scotsman who owned part of the land on which the Federal City was laid
out, once ventured to growl to the President: "Now what would ye ha'
been had ye not married the widow Custis?" But this was a narrow view of
the matter, for Washington was known throughout the Colonies before he
married the Custis pounds sterling and was a man of too much natural
ability not to have made a mark in later life, though possibly not so
high a one. Besides, as will be explained in detail later, much of the
Custis money was lost during the Revolution as a result of the
depreciation in the currency.
Following his marriage Washington added largely to his estate, both in
the neighborhood of Mount Vernon and elsewhere. In 1759 he bought of his
friend Bryan Fairfax two hundred and seventy-five acres on Difficult
Run, and about the same time from his neighbor, the celebrated George
Mason of Gunston Hall, he acquired one hundred acres next that already
bought of Darrell. Negotiations entered into with a certain Clifton for
the purchase of a tract of one thousand eight hundred six acres called
Brents was productive of much annoyance. Clifton agreed in February,
1760, to sell the ground for one thousand one hundred fifty pounds, but
later, "under pretence of his wife not consenting to acknowledge her
right of dower wanted to disengage himself ... and by his shuffling
behavior convinced me of his being the trifling body represented."
Washington heard presently that Clifton had sold the land to another
man for one thousand two hundred pounds, which fully "unravelled his
conduct ... and convinced me that he was nothing less than a thorough
paced rascal." Ultimately Washington acquired Brents, but had to pay
one thousand two hundred ten pounds for it.
During the next few years he acquired other tracts, notably the Posey
plantation just below Mount Vernon and later often called by him the
Ferry Farm. With it he acquired a ferry to the Maryland shore and a
fishery, both of which industries he continued.
By 1771 he paid quit rents upon an estate of five thousand five hundred
eighteen acres in Fairfax County; on two thousand four hundred
ninety-eight acres in Frederick County; on one thousand two hundred
fifty acres in King George; on two hundred forty in Hampshire; on two
hundred seventy-five in Loudoun; on two thousand six hundred eighty-two
in Loudoun Faquier--in all, twelve thousand four hundred sixty-three
acres. The quit rent was two shillings and sixpence per hundred acres
and amounted to £15.11.7.
In addition to these lands in the settled parts of Virginia he also had
claims to vast tracts in the unsettled West. For services in the French
and Indian War he was given twenty thousand acres of wild land beyond
the mountains--a cheap mode of reward, for the Ohio region was to all
intents and purposes more remote than Yukon is to-day. Many of his
fellow soldiers held their grants so lightly that he was able to buy
their claims for almost a song. The feeling that such grants were
comparatively worthless was increased by the fact that to become
effective they must be located and surveyed, while doubt existed as to
whether they would be respected owing to conflicting claims,
jurisdictions and proclamations.
[Illustration: The Porter's Lodge]
[Illustration: Driveway from the Lodge Gate]
Washington, however, had seen the land and knew it was good and he
had prophetic faith in the future of the West. He employed his old
comrade Captain William Crawford to locate and survey likely tracts not
only in what is now West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, but beyond
the Ohio River. Settlement in the latter region had been forbidden by
the King's proclamation of 1763, but Washington thought that this was
merely a temporary measure designed to quiet the Indians and was anxious
to have picked out in advance "some of the most valuable land in the
King's part." In other words he desired Crawford to act the part of a
"Sooner," in the language of more than a century later.
In this period a number of companies were scrambling for western lands,
and Washington, at one time or another, had an interest in what was
known as the Walpole Grant, the Mississippi Company, the Military
Company of Adventurers and the Dismal Swamp Company. This last company,
however, was interested in redeeming lands about Dismal Swamp in eastern
Virginia and it was the only one that succeeded. In 1799 he estimated
the value of his share in that company at twenty thousand dollars.
Washington took the lead in securing the rights of his old soldiers in
the French War, advancing money to pay expenses in behalf of the common
cause and using his influence in the proper quarters. In August, 1770,
he met many of his former officers at Captain Weedon's in
Fredericksburg, and after they had dined and had talked over old times,
they discussed the subject of their claims until sunset, and it was
decided that Washington should personally make a long and dangerous trip
to the western region.
In October he set out with his old friend Doctor James Craik and three
servants, including the ubiquitous Billy Lee, and on the way increased
the party. They followed the old Braddock Road to Pittsburgh, then a
village of about twenty log cabins, visiting en route some tracts of
land that Crawford had selected. At Pittsburgh they obtained a large
dugout, and with Crawford, two Indians and several borderers, floated
down the Ohio, picking out and marking rich bottom lands and having
great sport hunting and fishing.
The region in which they traveled was then little known and was
unsettled by white men. Daniel Boone had made his first hunting trip
into "the dark and bloody ground of Kaintuckee" only the year before,
and scattered along the banks of the Ohio stood the wigwam villages of
the aboriginal lords of the land. At one such village Washington met a
chief who had accompanied him on his memorable winter journey in 1753 to
warn out the French, and elsewhere talked with Indians who had shot at
him in the battle of the Monongahela and now expressed a belief that he
must be invulnerable. At the Mingo Town they saw a war party of three
score painted Iroquois on their way to fight the far distant Catawbas.
Between the Indians and the white men peace nominally reigned, but
rumors were flying of impending uprisings, and the Red Man's smouldering
hate was soon to burst into the flame known as Lord Dunmore's War. Once
the party was alarmed by a report that the Indians had killed two white
men, but they breathed easier on learning that the sole basis of the
story was that a trader had tried to swim his horse across the Ohio and
had been drowned. In spite of uncertainties, the voyagers continued to
the Great Kanawha and paddled about fourteen miles up that stream. Near
its mouth Washington located two large tracts for himself and military
comrades and after interesting hunting experiences and inspecting some
enormous sycamores--concerning which matters more hereafter--the party
turned back, and Washington reached home after an absence of nine weeks.
Two of Washington's western tracts are of special interest. One had been
selected by Crawford in 1767 and was "a fine piece of land on a stream
called Chartiers Creek" in the present Washington County, southwest of
Pittsburgh. Crawford surveyed the tract and marked it by blazed trees,
built four cabins and cleared a patch of ground, as an improvement,
about each. Later Washington, casting round for some one from whom to
obtain a military title with which to cover the tract, bought out the
claim of his financially embarrassed old neighbor Captain John Posey to
three thousand acres, paying £11.11.3, or about two cents per acre.
Crawford, now a deputy surveyor of the region, soon after resurveyed two
thousand eight hundred thirteen acres and forwarded the "return" to
Washington, with the result that in 1774 Governor Dunmore of Virginia
granted a patent for the land.
In the meantime, however, six squatters built a cabin upon the tract and
cleared two or three acres, but Crawford paid them five pounds for their
improvements and induced them to move on. To keep off other interlopers
he placed a man on the land, but in 1773 a party of rambunctious
Scotch-Irishmen appeared on the scene, drove the keeper away, built a
cabin so close in front of his door that he could not get back in, and
continued to hold the land until after the Revolution.
By that time Crawford himself was dead--having suffered the most
terrible of all deaths--that of an Indian captive burnt at the stake.
The other tract whose history it is worth our while to follow consisted
of twelve hundred acres on the Youghiogheny River, likewise not far from
Pittsburgh. It bore seams of coal, which Washington examined in 1770 and
thought "to be of the very best kind, burning freely and abundance of
it." In the spring of 1773 he sent out a certain Gilbert Simpson, with
whom he had formed a sort of partnership, to look after this land, and
each furnished some laborers, Washington a "fellow" and a "wench."
Simpson managed to clear some ground and get in six acres of corn, but
his wife disliked life on the borderland and made him so uncomfortable
with her complaints that he decided to throw up the venture. However, he
changed his mind, and after a trip back East returned and, on a site
noticed by the owner on his visit, built a grist mill on a small stream
now called Washington's Run that empties into the Youghiogheny. This was
one of the first mills erected west of the Alleghany Mountains and is
still standing, though more or less rebuilt. The millstones were dug out
of quarries in the neighborhood and the work of building the mill was
done amid considerable danger from the Indians, who had begun what is
known as Dunmore's War. Simpson's cabin and the slave quarters stood
near what is now Plant No. 2 of the Washington Coal and Coke Company.
The tract of land contains valuable seams of coal and with some
contiguous territory is valued at upward of twenty million dollars.
Washington had large ideas for the development of these western lands.
At one time he considered attempting to import Palatine Germans to
settle there, but after careful investigation decided that the plan was
impracticable. In 1774 he bought four men convicts, four indented
servants, and a man and his wife for four years and sent them and some
carpenters out to help Simpson build the mill and otherwise improve the
lands. Next year he sent out another party, but Indian troubles and
later the Revolution united with the natural difficulties of the
country to put a stop to progress. Some of the servants were sold and
others ran away, but Simpson stayed on in charge, though without making
any financial settlement with his patron till 1784.
At the close of the Revolution Washington wrote to President John
Witherspoon of Princeton College that he had in the western country
patents under signature of Lord Dunmore "for about 30,000 acres, and
surveys for about 10,000 more, patents for which were suspended by the
disputes with Great Britain, which soon followed the return of the
warrants to the land office. Ten thousand acres of the above thirty lie
upon the Ohio; the rest on the Great Kenhawa, a river nearly as large,
and quite as easy in its navigation, as the former, The whole of it is
rich bottom land, beautifully situated on these rivers, and abounding
plenteously in fish, wild-fowl, and game of all kinds."
He could have obtained vast land grants for his Revolutionary services,
but he stuck by his announced intention of receiving only compensation
for his expenses. He continued, however, to be greatly interested in the
western country and was one of the first Americans to foresee the
importance of that region to the young Republic, predicting that it
would become populated more rapidly than any one could believe and
faster than any similar region ever had been settled. He was extremely
anxious to develop better methods of communication with the West and in
1783 made a trip up the Mohawk River to the famous Oneida or Great
Carrying Place to view the possibilities of waterway development in that
region--the future course of the Erie Canal. Soon after he wrote to his
friend the Chevalier de Chastellux: "I could not help taking a more
extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States and
could not but be struck by the immense extent and importance of it, and
of the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us with
so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve
them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the Western
Country, and traversed those lines or great part of them, which have
given bounds to a new empire."
In partnership with George Clinton he bought, in 1784, a tract of six
thousand acres on the Mohawk, paying for his share, including interest,
one thousand eight hundred seventy-five pounds. In 1793 he sold
two-thirds of his half for three thousand four hundred pounds and in his
will valued the thousand acres that remained at six thousand dollars.
This was a speculation pure and simple, as he was never in the region in
which the land lay but once.
On December 23, 1783, in an ever memorable scene, Washington resigned
his commission as Commander of the Continental Army and rode off from
Annapolis to Mount Vernon to keep Christmas there for the first time
since 1774. The next eight months he was busily engaged in making
repairs and improvements about his home estate, but on September first,
having two days before said good-by to Lafayette, who had been visiting
him, he set off on horseback to inspect his western lands and to obtain
information requisite to a scheme he had for improving the "Inland
Navigation of the Potomac" and connecting its head waters by canal with
those of the Ohio. The first object was rendered imperative by the
settlement of squatters on part of his richest land, some of which was
even being offered for sale by unscrupulous land agents.
With him went again his old friend Doctor Craik. Their equipage
consisted of three servants and six horses, three of which last carried
the baggage, including a marquee, some camp utensils, a few medicines,
"hooks and lines," Madeira, port wine and cherry bounce. Stopping at
night and for meals at taverns or the homes of relatives or friends,
they passed up the picturesque Potomac Valley, meeting many friends
along the way, among them the celebrated General Daniel Morgan, with
whom Washington talked over the waterways project. At "Happy Retreat,"
the home of Charles Washington in the fertile Shenandoah Valley, beyond
the Blue Ridge, Washington met and transacted business with tenants who
lived on his lands in that region. On September fifth he reached Bath,
the present Berkeley Springs, where he owned two thousand acres of land
and two lots. Here fifteen years before he had come with his family in
the hope that the water would benefit poor "Patey" Custis, and here he
met "the ingenious Mr. Rumney" who showed him the model of a boat to be
propelled by steam.
At Bath the party was joined by Doctor Craik's son William and by the
General's nephew, Bushrod Washington. Twelve miles to the west
Washington turned aside from the main party to visit a tract of two
hundred forty acres that he owned on the Virginia side of the Potomac.
He found it "exceedingly Rich, & must be very valuable--the lower end of
the Land is rich white oak in places springey ... the upper part is ...
covered with Walnut of considerable size many of them." He "got a snack"
at the home of a Mr. McCracken and left with that gentleman the terms
upon which he would let the land, then rode onward and rejoined
the others.
The cavalcade passed on to Fort Cumberland. There Washington left the
main party to follow with the baggage and hurried on ahead along
Braddock's old road in order to fill an appointment to be at Gilbert
Simpson's by the fifteenth. Passing through the dark tangle of Laurel
known as the Shades of Death, he came on September twelfth to the
opening among the mountains--the Great Meadows--where in 1754 in his
rude little fort of logs, aptly named Fort Necessity, he had fought the
French and had been conquered by them. He owned the spot now, for in
1770 Crawford had bought it for him for "30 Pistols[3]," Thirty years
before, as an enthusiastic youth, he had called it a "charming field for
an encounter"; now he spoke of it as "capable of being turned to great
advantage ... a very good stand for a Tavern--much Hay may be cut here
When the ground is laid down in grass & the upland, East of the Meadow,
is good for grain."
[3] Doubtless he meant pistoles, coins, not weapons.
Not a word about the spot's old associations!
The same day he pushed on through the mountains, meeting "numbers of
Persons & Pack horses going in with Ginseng; & for Salt & other articles
at the Markets below," and near nightfall reached on the Youghiogheny
River the tract on which Gilbert Simpson, his agent, lived. He found the
land poorer than he had expected and the buildings that had been erected
indifferent, while the mill was in such bad condition that "little Rent,
or good is to be expected from the present aspect of her," He was, in
fact, unable to find a renter for the mill and let the land, twelve
hundred acres, now worth millions, for only five hundred bushels
of wheat!
The land had cost him far more than he had received from it. Simpson had
not proved a man of much energy and even had he been otherwise
conditions in the region would have prevented him from accomplishing
much in a financial way, for there was little or no market for farm
produce near at hand and the cost of transportation over the mountains
was prohibitive. During the Revolution, however, Simpson had in some way
or other got hold of some paper currency and a few months before had
turned over the worthless bills to Washington. A century later the
package was sold at auction, and the band, which was still unbroken,
bore upon it in Washington's hand: "Given by Gilbt. Simpson, 19
June, 1784."
At Simpson's Washington was met by a delegation from the squatters on
his holdings on Miller's Run or Chartiers Creek, "and after much
conversation & attempts in them to discover all the flaws they could in
my Deed &c." they announced that they would give a definite answer as to
what they would do when Washington reached the land in dispute.
He drew near the neighborhood on the following Saturday, but the next
day "Being Sunday, and the People living on my Land, _apparently_ very
religious, it was thought best to postpone going among them till
to-morrow." On Monday, in company with several persons including the
high sheriff, Captain Van Swearingen, or "Indian Van," captain of one of
the companies in Morgan's famous rifle corps, he proceeded to the land
and found that, of two thousand eight hundred thirteen acres, three
hundred sixty-three were under cultivation and forty more were in
meadow. On the land stood twelve cabins and nine barns claimed by
fourteen different persons, most or all of whom were doughty
Scotch-Irishmen.
Washington was humane enough to see that they had something to urge in
their behalf and offered to sell them the whole tract at twenty-five
shillings an acre, or to take them as tenants, but they stubbornly
refused his offers and after much wrangling announced their intention to
stand suit. Ejectment proceedings were accordingly brought by
Washington's attorney, Thomas Smith of Carlisle. The case was tried in
1786 before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and resulted in
Washington's favor.
In 1796 Washington sold the tract to a certain Matthew Richey for twelve
thousand dollars, of which three thousand one hundred eighty dollars was
to be paid in cash and the rest in three annual instalments. Richey died
in 1798, and Washington's heirs had difficulties in their attempts to
collect the remainder.
Leaving these legal matters to be disposed of by lawyers, Washington
turned back without visiting his Kanawha or Ohio lands, and on October
fourth reached Mount Vernon, having traveled on horseback about six
hundred eighty miles. One result of his trip was the formation of the
Potomac Company, but this is a subject that lies without the scope of
this book.
[Illustration: The Seed House, Beyond Lay the Vegetable Garden]
[Illustration: One of the Artificial Mounds. The Tree upon It was Set
out by Mrs. Grover Cleveland.]
From that time onward he bought occasional tracts of lands in various
parts of the country or acquired them in discharge of debts. By the
death of his mother he acquired her land on Accokeek Creek in Stafford
County, near where his father had operated an iron furnace.
Washington's landed estate as listed in his will amounted to about sixty
thousand two hundred two acres, besides lots in Washington, Alexandria,
Winchester, Bath, Manchester, Edinburgh and Richmond. Nine thousand two
hundred twenty-seven acres, including Mount Vernon and a tract on Four
Mile Run, he specifically bequeathed to individuals, as he did some of
the lots. The remaining lots and fifty thousand nine hundred
seventy-five acres (some of which land was already conditionally sold)
he directed to be disposed of, together with his live stock, government
bonds and shares held by him in the Potomac Company, the Dismal Swamp
Company, the James River Company and the banks of Columbia and
Alexandria--the whole value of which he conservatively estimated at five
hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The value of the property he
specifically bequeathed, with his slaves, which he directed should be
freed, can only be guessed at, but can hardly have been short of two
hundred and twenty thousand dollars more. In other words, he died
possessed of property worth three-quarters of a million and was the
richest man in America.
Not all of the land that he listed in his will proved of benefit to his
heirs. The title to three thousand fifty-one acres lying on the Little
Miami River in what is now Ohio and valued by him at fifteen thousand
two hundred fifty-five dollars proved defective. In 1790 a law, signed
by himself, had passed Congress requiring the recording of such
locations with the federal Secretary of State. Washington's locations
and surveys of this Ohio land had already been recorded in the Virginia
land office, and with a carelessness unusual in him he neglected to
comply with the statute. After his death certain persons took advantage
of the defect and seized the lands, and his executors failed to embrace
another opportunity given them to perfect the title, with the result
that the lands were lost.
The matter rested until a few years ago when some descendants of the
heirs set their heads together and one of them, Robert E. Lee, Jr.,
procured his appointment in 1907 by the court of Fairfax County as
administrator _de bonis non_ of Washington's estate. It was, of course,
impossible to regain the lands--which lie not far from Cincinnati and
are worth vast sums--so the movers in the matter had recourse to that
last resort of such claimants--Congress--and, with the modesty usually
shown by claimants, asked that body to reimburse the heirs in the sum of
three hundred and five thousand one hundred dollars--that is, one
hundred dollars per acre--with interest from the date of petition.
Thus far Congress has not seen fit to comply, nor does there seem to be
any good reason why it should do so. The land cost Washington a mere
bagatelle, it was lost through the neglect of himself and his executors,
and not one of the persons who would benefit by such a subsidy from the
public funds is his lineal descendant. As a mere matter of public policy
and common sense it may well be doubted whether any claim upon
government, no matter how just in itself, should be reimbursed beyond
the third generation. The heirs urge in extenuation of the claim that
Washington refused to accept any compensation for his Revolutionary
services, but it is answered that it is hardly seemly for his grand
nephews and grand nieces many times removed to beg for something that
the Father of His Country himself rejected. One wonders whether the
claimants would dare to press their claims in the presence of their
great Kinsman himself!