CHAPTER LIX.
1752.
Dinwiddie, Governor—Ohio Company—Lawrence Washington—His Views on Religious Freedom—Davies and the Dissenters—Dissensions between Dinwiddie and the Assembly—George Washington—His Lineage—Early Education—William Fairfax—Washington a Surveyor—Lord Fairfax—Washington Adjutant-General.
A new epoch dawns with the administration of Robert Dinwiddie, who arrived in Virginia as lieutenant-governor early in 1752, with the purpose of repressing the encroachments of the French, of extending the confines of Virginia, and of enlarging the Indian trade. A vast tract of land, mostly lying west of the mountains and south of the Ohio, was granted by the king about the year 1749, to a company of planters and merchants. This scheme appears to have been brought forward in the preceding year by Thomas Lee of the council, and he became associated with twelve persons in Virginia and Maryland, and with Mr. Hanbury, a London Quaker merchant, and they were incorporated as "The Ohio Company." Lawrence and Augustine Washington were early and prominent members of this company. The company sent out Mr. Christopher Gist to explore the country on the Ohio as far as the falls. He was, like Boone, from the banks of the Yadkin, an expert pioneer, at home in the wilderness and among the Indians, adventurous, hardy, and intrepid. Crossing the Ohio, he found the country well watered and wooded, with here and there plains covered with wild rye, or meadows of blue grass and clover. He observed numerous buffaloes, deer, elk, and wild turkeys. Returning to the Ohio and recrossing it, Gist proceeded toward the Cuttawa or Kentucky River. Ascending to the summit of a mountain, he beheld that magnificent region long before it was seen by Daniel Boone.[453:A]
On the 13th of June, 1752, a treaty was effected with the western Indians at Logstown, on the Ohio, by which they agreed not to molest any settlements that might be made on the southeast side of the Ohio. Colonel Fry and two other commissioners represented Virginia on this occasion, while Gist appeared as agent of the Ohio Company.
Thomas Lee, the projector of this company, having not survived long after its incorporation, the chief conduct of it fell into the hands of Lawrence Washington. Governor Dinwiddie and George Mason were also members. There were twenty shares and as many members. Lawrence Washington, being desirous of colonizing Germans on the company's lands, wrote to Mr. Hanbury as follows: "While the unhappy state of my health called me back to our springs,[453:B] I conversed with all the Pennsylvanian Dutch whom I met with, either there or elsewhere, and much recommended their settling on the Ohio. The chief reason against it was, the paying of an English clergyman, when few understood and none made use of him. It has been my opinion, and I hope ever will be, that restraints on conscience are cruel in regard to those on whom they are imposed, and injurious to the country imposing them. England, Holland, and Prussia, I may quote as examples, and much more, Pennsylvania, which has flourished under that delightful liberty so as to become the admiration of every man who considers the short time it has been settled. As the ministry have thus far shown the true spirit of patriotism, by encouraging the extending of our dominions in America, I doubt not by an application they would still go farther, and complete what they have begun, by procuring some kind of charter to prevent the residents on the Ohio and its branches from being subject to parish taxes. They all assured me that they might have from Germany any number of settlers, could they but obtain their favorite exemption. I have promised to endeavor for it, and now do my utmost by this letter. I am well assured we shall never obtain it by a law here. This colony was greatly settled, in the latter part of Charles the First's time and during the usurpation, by the zealous churchmen, and that spirit which was then brought in has ever since continued, so that, except a few Quakers, we have no dissenters. But what has been the consequence? We have increased by slow degrees, except negroes and convicts, while our neighboring colonies, whose natural advantages are greatly inferior to ours, have become populous."[454:A] He also wrote to Governor Dinwiddie, then in England, to the same effect. He replied that it would be difficult to obtain the desired exemption for the Dutch settlers, but promised to use his utmost endeavors to effect it. It does not appear whether the ministry ever came to a decision on this subject. The non-conformists augured favorably of Dinwiddie's administration. The Rev. Jonathan Edwards, in a letter addressed to Rev. John Erskine, of the Kirk of Scotland, says: "What you write of the appointment of a gentleman to the office of lieutenant-governor of Virginia, who is a friend to religion, is an event that the friends of religion in America have great reason to rejoice in, by reason of the late revival of religion in that province, and the opposition that has been made against it, and the great endeavors to crush it by many of the chief men of the province. Mr. Davies, in a letter I lately received from him, dated March 2d, 1752, mentions the same thing. His words are, 'We have a new governor who is a candid, condescending gentleman. And as he has been educated in the Church of Scotland, he has a respect for the Presbyterians, which I hope is a happy omen.'" Jonathan Edwards was invited in the summer of 1751 to come and settle in Virginia, and a handsome sum was subscribed for his support; but he was installed at Stockbridge, in Massachusetts, before the messenger from Virginia reached him.[454:B]
Dinwiddie, the new governor, an able man, had been a clerk to a collector in a West India custom-house, whose enormous defalcation he exposed to the government; and for this service, it is said, he was promoted, in 1741, to the office of surveyor of the customs for the colonies, and now to the post of governor of Virginia. She was at this time one of the most populous and the most wealthy of all the Anglo-American colonies. Dinwiddie, upon his arrival, gave offence by declaring the king's dissent to certain acts which Gooch had approved; and in June, 1752, the assembly remonstrated against this exercise of the royal prerogative; but their remonstrance proved unavailing. The Virginians were in the habit of acquiring lands without expense, by means of a warrant of a survey without a patent. Dinwiddie found a million of unpatented acres thus possessed, and he established, with the advice of the council, a fee of a pistole (equivalent to three dollars and sixty cents) for every seal annexed to a grant. Against this measure the assembly, in December, 1753, passed strong resolutions, and declared that whoever should pay that fee should be considered a betrayer of the rights of the people; and they sent the attorney-general, Peyton Randolph, as their agent, to England, with a salary of two thousand pounds, to procure redress. The board of trade, after virtually deciding in favor of Dinwiddie, recommended a compromise of the dispute, and advised him to reinstate Randolph in the office of attorney-general, as the times required harmony and mutual confidence. The assembly appear to have been much disturbed upon a small occasion. During Randolph's absence Dinwiddie wrote to a correspondent in England: "I have had a great deal of trouble and uneasiness from the factious disputes and violent heats of a most impudent, troublesome party here, in regard to that silly fee of a pistole; they are very full of the success of their party, which I give small notice to."
The natural prejudice felt by the aristocracy of Virginia against Dinwiddie, as an untitled Scotchman, was increased by a former altercation with him. When, in 1741, he was made surveyor-general of the customs, he was appointed, as his predecessors had been, a member of the several councils of the colonies. Gooch obeyed the order; but the council, prompted by their old jealousy of the surveyor-general's interfering with their municipal laws, and still more by their overweening exclusiveness, refused to permit him to act with them, either in the council or on the bench. The board of trade decided the controversy in favor of Dinwiddie.[456:A]
It was during Dinwiddie's administration that the name of George Washington began to attract public attention. The curiosity of his admirers has traced the family back to the Conquest. Sir William Washington, of Packington, in the County of Kent, married a sister of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and favorite of Charles the First. Lieutenant-Colonel James Washington, taking up arms in the royal cause, lost his life at the siege of Pontefract Castle. Sir Henry Washington, son and heir of Sir William, distinguished himself while serving under Prince Rupert, at the storming of Bristol, in 1643, and again a few years after, while in command of Worcester. His uncles, John and Lawrence Washington, in the year 1657, emigrated to Virginia, and settled in Westmoreland. John married a Miss Anne Pope, and resided at Bridge's or Bridge Creek, in that county. It is he who has been before mentioned as commanding the Virginia troops against the Indians not long before the breaking out of Bacon's rebellion. He and his brother Lawrence both died in 1677; their wills are preserved; they both appear to have had estates in England as well as in Virginia. His grandson, Augustine, father of George, born in 1694, married first in April, 1715, Jane Butler; and their two sons, Lawrence and Augustine, survived their childhood. In March, 1730, Augustine Washington, Sr., married secondly, Mary Ball. The issue of this union were four sons, George, Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles, and two daughters, Elizabeth or Betty, and Mildred, who died an infant. George Washington was born on the twenty-second day of February, N. S., 1732. The birth-place is sometimes called Bridge's Creek, and sometimes Pope's Creek; the house stood about a mile apart between the two creeks, but nearer to Pope's. Of the steep-roofed house which overlooked the Potomac, a brick chimney and some scattered bricks alone remain. George, it is seen, was the eldest child of a second marriage.
Not long after his birth his father removed to a seat opposite Fredericksburg; and this was the scene of George's boyhood; but the house has disappeared. He received only a plain English education, having obtained his first instruction at an old field school, under a teacher named Hobby—the parish sexton. The military spirit pervading the colony reached the school; in these military amusements George Washington was predominant; but he found a competitor in William Bustle.
Augustine Washington, the father of George, died in April, 1743, aged forty-nine years. He left a large estate. Not long afterwards Lawrence Washington married Anne, eldest daughter of the Honorable William Fairfax, and took up his residence at Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County. Augustine resided at Bridge's Creek, and married Anne, daughter of William Aylett, Esq., of Westmoreland County. George remained under the care of his mother, and was sent to stay for a time with his brother Augustine, to go to a school under charge of a teacher named Williams. It is probable that, as he taught him his daily lesson, he little anticipated the figure which his pupil was destined to make in the world. While he became thorough in what he learned he became expert in manly and athletic exercises. As he advanced in years he was a frequent guest at Mount Vernon, and became familiar with the Fairfax family at Belvoir, (called in England Beaver,) a few miles below, on the Potomac.
In the year 1747, when George was in his fourteenth year, a midshipman's warrant was obtained for him by his brother Lawrence. His father-in-law, William Fairfax, in September of the preceding year, had written to him: "George has been with us, and says he will be steady, and thankfully follow your advice as his best friend." From his promise to be steady, it may be inferred that he was then not so. And from his consenting to follow thankfully his brother's advice, it would appear that the plan of his going to sea originated with Lawrence, and not from George's strong bent that way, as has been commonly stated.
While the matter was still undetermined, his uncle, Joseph Ball, who, having married an English lady, had settled as a lawyer in London, wrote as follows to his sister Mary, the mother of Washington, in a letter dated at Strafford-by-Bow, May the 19th, 1747: "I understand that you are advised, and have some thoughts of putting your son George to sea. I think he had better be put apprentice to a tinker; for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the liberty of the subject; for they will press him from a ship where he has fifty shillings a month, and make him take twenty-three, and cut, and slash, and use him like a negro, or rather like a dog. And as to any considerable preferment in the navy, it is not to be expected, as there are always so many gaping for it here who have interest, and he has none. And if he should get to be master of a Virginia ship, (which it is very difficult to do,) a planter that has three or four hundred acres of land, and three or four slaves, if he be industrious, may live more comfortably and have his family in better bread, than such a master of a ship can. He must not be too hasty to be rich, but go on gently and with patience as things will naturally go. This method without aiming at being a fine gentleman before his time, will carry a man more comfortably and surely through the world than going to sea, unless it be a great chance indeed. I pray God keep you and yours.
"Your loving brother,
"JOSEPH BALL."[458:A]
At length the mother's affectionate opposition prevented the execution of this scheme. George Washington now devoted himself to his studies, especially the mathematics and surveying.
The marriage of his brother, Lawrence Washington, with Miss Fairfax, introduced George to the favor of Thomas Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck, who gave him an appointment as surveyor. He was now little more than sixteen years of age. After crossing the Blue Ridge, the surveying party, including George Fairfax, entered a wilderness where they were exposed to the inclemency of the season, and subjected to hardship and fatigue. It was in the month of March, in the eventful year 1748; snow yet lingered on the mountain-tops, and the streams were swollen into torrents. The survey-lands lay on the Shenandoah, near the site of Winchester, and beyond the first range of the Alleghanies, on the south branch of the Potomac, about seventy miles above Harper's Ferry. This kind of life was well fitted to train young Washington for his future career: a knowledge of topography taught him how to select a ground for encampment or for battle; while hardy exercise and exposure invigorated a frame naturally athletic, and fitted him to endure the privations and encounter the dangers of military life. He now became acquainted with the temper and habits of the people of the frontier, and the Indians; and grew familiar with the wild country which was to be the scene of his early military operations. His regular pay was a doubloon (seven dollars and twenty cents) a day, and occasionally six pistoles (twenty-one dollars and sixty cents.)
Appointed by the president of William and Mary College, in July, 1749, a public surveyor, he continued to engage in this pursuit for three years, except during the rigor of the winter months. Lord Fairfax had taken up his residence at Greenway Court, thirteen miles southeast of the site of Winchester. A graduate of Oxford, accustomed to that society in England to which his rank entitled him, fond of literature, and having contributed some numbers to the Spectator, this nobleman, owing to a disappointment in love, had come to superintend his vast landed possessions, embracing twenty-one large counties, and live in the secluded Valley of the Shenandoah. Here Washington, the youthful surveyor, was a frequent inmate; and here he indulged his taste for hunting, and improved himself by reading and conversing with Lord Fairfax.
FOOTNOTES:
[453:A] Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 478; Irving's Washington, i. 59.
[453:B] At Bath, in Virginia.
[454:A] Sparks' Writings of Washington, ii. 481.
[454:B] Foote's Sketches, 219.
[456:A] Chalmers' Hist. of Revolt of Amer. Colonies, ii. 199.
[458:A] Bishop Meade's Old Churches, etc.
