VIRGINIA IN 1732.
In 1732, 125 years had passed since the founding at Jamestown of the first successful English colony in America. The county of Westmoreland had been established for 79 years, and three-quarters of a century had gone by since Augustine’s grandfather, John Washington, had settled in Virginia. Williamsburg had been the capital of the colony for 33 years, and William and Mary College was in its 40th year. Some of Augustine’s older friends remembered Bacon’s Rebellion, which had flared up and had been extinguished by Governor Berkeley 56 years earlier. Augustine himself certainly remembered news of the fight between Blackbeard’s pirates and Virginia sailors, for only 14 years had gone by since the ruthless pirate leader had been killed off Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Augustine also remembered accounts of the expedition Governor Spotswood had led to the distant Blue Ridge Mountains in 1716, for this adventuresome exploit was still discussed by the tidewater planters who coveted the little-known lands beyond the distant mountains.
Washington family coat of arms.
Ball family coat of arms.
There were only two towns in Virginia of any considerable size—Williamsburg and Norfolk—by 1732. The population of the colony was estimated at 114,000, of which 76,000 were whites and 38,000 Negroes. George Gooch was Lieutenant Governor of the Royal Province and George II was in the 6th year of his reign.
In 1732 William Byrd of “Westover” and Peter Jones were surveying the North Carolina-Virginia boundary line, and another year was to go by before Petersburg and Richmond would be laid out as townsites. There was not a single newspaper in Virginia in 1732; Augustine may have read The Maryland Gazette (published in Annapolis by W. Parks at 15 shillings a year) or one printed in London.
Tobacco was the important money crop, and almost every ship that sailed from a plantation wharf carried hogsheads of the “delightful weed” in its hold. Many other commodities, too, were shipped to the mother country as well as to New England, the middle colonies, Barbados, Madeira, Bermuda, and Jamaica. Exports from one Virginia shipping district—Porth South Potomac—in 1732 included (besides tobacco) staves, timber, corn, wheat, peas, beans, masts, pig iron, feathers, pork, cotton, earthenware “parcels,” woodenware “parcels,” bacon, hides, deerskins, beaver skins, oak and walnut logs, cider and cider casks, beef, wine pipes, snakeroot, tallow, pewter and brass “parcels,” and copper ore casks. Items imported included rum, salt, Irish linen, fish, chocolate, molasses, sugar, earthernware, “woodware,” millstones, Madeira wine, cheese, rice, ironware, and “parcels from Great Britain.” The latter “parcels” included furniture fabrics, rugs, pottery and porcelain, silver, pewter, copper and brassware, and other household furnishings and accessories needed by the colonists.
George Washington
On February 11 (Old Style), 1732—when jasmine and jonquils were beginning to bloom and dark purple berries were forming on the native “cedar” trees—Mary Ball Washington gave birth to her first child, a boy she named George. The time was about 10 o’clock in the morning. At a later date the event was recorded with brevity in the family Bible:
George Washington son to Augustine & Mary his Wife was Born ye 11th Day of February 1731/2 about 10 in the Morning & was Baptis’d the 5th of April following Mr. Beverley Whiting & Capt Christopher Brookes godfathers and Mrs. Mildred Gregory godmother.
The date, “11th Day of February,” was “Old Style.” By the Gregorian calendar, adopted by Great Britain in 1752 and now in use in the United States, the date was February 22, 1732, “New Style.”
The place where George was baptized on the 5th of April is unknown, although the christening probably took place in the Popes Creek home. If not there, it may have occurred at Mattox Church (located at Church Point about 2½ miles away) or at Round Hill Church about 16 miles from the Popes Creek home by road. The Reverend Roderick McCullough was the minister in charge of the Episcopal churches in Washington Parish in 1732, but of his actual administering of the rite there is no record.
Very little is known about the godparents. A Beverley Whiting served as a burgess from Gloucester County, and a Christopher Brooke was captain of a Virginia ship, the Cambridge, but there is no evidence that these men were the ones, with similar names, recorded in the family Bible. The godmother, Mildred Washington Gregory, was George’s aunt.
The first 3½ years of George’s life were spent at the Popes Creek plantation. At some unknown date between March 25 and November 18, 1735, Augustine Washington moved his family up the Potomac River about 50 miles to his farm on Hunting Creek (known today as Mount Vernon). Three years later Augustine purchased a 288-acre farm near Fredericksburg, and about December 1, 1738 (when George was almost 7 years old) moved there with his family.
In 1742 Augustine acquired another tract of land between Popes Creek and Bridges Creek—within sight of the home where George was born. With the exception of one piece of property on the river all of the Popes Creek—Bridges Creek peninsula was now owned by George’s father.
In 1743, a few weeks after George’s 11th birthday, Augustine Washington was stricken with a stomach disorder, and died on the 12th of April. He was interred in the family burying ground at Bridges Creek, where his father, Lawrence, and grandfather, John, were buried. Augustine left the Popes Creek—Bridges Creek plantation to his second son and namesake, Augustine, Jr. (one of George’s elder half brothers).
After his father’s death it appears that George resided variously with his mother on her farm near Fredericksburg; at Mount Vernon with another half brother, Lawrence; at “Chotank” in King George County with other relatives; and at his birth home on Popes Creek with his elder half brother, Augustine, Jr.
The frequency and length of these visits of George to Popes Creek are not known, but there is ample evidence that he stayed with his elder brother and sister-in-law on many occasions for long periods. During such visits he must have become familiar with every nook and cranny in his birth home, as well as with its outdoor attractions—the green fields of tobacco, corn, and wheat; the sweet-scented herb garden; the domestic animals, and other aspects of farm life beloved by all boys fortunate enough to know them.
Survey of Bridges Creek area by George Washington at the age of 15.
A copy of a chain, compass, and scale drawn by George Washington when he was 14 years old.
Beyond the cultivated fields grew the dense forest, which only a century before had been the hunting ground of the Indians. The dominant trees in the majestic woods were the broadleaf species—oak, maple, walnut, hickory, chestnut, holly, dogwood, persimmon, and tulip-poplar—interspersed with a few conifers, including cedar and several species of pine. Wild animals were abundant and young George probably hunted deer, bear, turkey, and other woodland creatures.
Tranquil Popes Creek must have had a special appeal to the growing boy, for along its edge, ducks and wild geese searched for food, and in its waters swam large turtles and many kinds of fish. More inviting than the creek, however, was the broad Potomac River—an invitation to fish, swim, and sail boat.
All was not play at the Popes Creek plantation. For when George visited his elder brother he undoubtedly helped with the numerous farm chores. Then, too, he may have attended the school Henry Williams conducted near Mattox Creek, although no direct evidence of this has been found. There is, however, reliable evidence that he mastered his first lessons in surveying while visiting his birthplace, for an existing survey of the Bridges Creek area was made by George in 1747, when he was only 15 years old.
SOME EARLY FOUNDATIONS UNEARTHED at WASHINGTON’S BIRTHPLACE
12′×12′ Foundation of 17th century building located ¼ mile northeast of the Washington Family burying ground. Believed to be a building constructed by Henry Brooks, who patented the land in 1657. Excavated in 1934.
WASHINGTON FAMILY BURYING GROUND
20′×14′ Foundation of building unearthed 180 feet southeast of Washington family burying ground, Bridges Creek, 1930 and 34. The structure—on land acquired in 1664 by John Washington (George’s great-grandfather)—was probably an outbuilding.
21′×36′ Foundation of early 18th century building unearthed by the War Department in 1896, traditionally the one in which George Washington was born in 1732.
Source—From a “Map Showing foundation of the Wakefield Mansion—Where tradition affirms Washington was born”. Map drawn by John Stewart, C.E., 1896
KITCHEN
Foundation of early 18th century chimney unearthed in 1896.
14′×14′ Foundation of early 18th century building (probably a smokehouse) unearthed by the National Park Service in 1936.
COLONIAL GARDEN
Foundation of small brick structure unearthed in 1936. Use of structure unknown.
30′×58′ Foundation of old structure known as building “X.” Uncovered by National Park Service in 1930. Re-excavated 1936.
Drawn by George Washington in 1750 (copy)
It is not known when George left the Popes Creek plantation for the last time as a youth, but he must have departed with a touch of sadness. The joys and pleasures of life on such a busy and beautiful tidewater plantation must have been unforgettable to the tall, teenage boy.
The Disastrous Fire
George’s elder half brother, Augustine Washington, Jr., the second owner of the Popes Creek home, died in 1762. The plantation passed to his son, William Augustine Washington, George’s eldest nephew. William Augustine took title in full in 1774 when his mother, Ann Washington (who had a dower life interest in the estate), died. About this time the Popes Creek plantation, for the first time, was called “Wakefield,” a name said to have been inspired by Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, and which has endured.
During the latter part of the American Revolution, when General Washington was leading the Continental Army in the north, his birth home in faraway Virginia caught fire and burned to the ground. Indirect evidence and tradition indicate that the house was destroyed Christmas Day, 1779. At the time of the fire the structure was owned by its third and last owner, William Augustine Washington. According to his daughter, Sarah Tayloe Washington, her father noticed the roof burning while returning from a ride. It is believed that a spark from the chimney blew through the small garret window and set fire to the house. The home which had sheltered three generations of Washingtons for half a century was never rebuilt by them.
A Century of Neglect
After the disastrous fire at Wakefield, 36 years passed before the birthsite was marked. Finally, in 1815, George Washington Parke Custis (a grandson of Martha Washington and a ward of George Washington) visited Popes Creek and, in an imposing ceremony, marked what he considered to be the spot. Custis, in a letter to the editor of the Alexandria Gazette, described his visit in the following language:
In June, 1815, I sailed on my vessel, the “Lady of the Lake”, a fine topsail schooner of ninety tons, accompanied by two gentlemen, Messrs. Lewis and Grimes, bound to Popes Creek in the County of Westmoreland, carrying with us a slab of freestone, having the following inscription:
“Here
The 11th of February, 1732, (Old Style)
George Washington
Was Born.”We anchored some distance from the land, and taking to our boats, we soon reached the mouth of Pope’s or Bridge’s Creek, and proceeding upwards we fell in with McKenzie Beverly, Esq., and several gentlemen composing a fishing party, and also with the overseer of the property that formed the object of our visit. We were kindly received by these individuals, and escorted to the spot, where a few scattered bricks alone marked the birthplace of the chief.
Desirous of making the ceremonial of depositing the stone as imposing as circumstances would permit, we enveloped it in the “star spangled banner” of our country, and it was borne to its resting place in the arms of the descendants of four revolutionary patriots and soldiers.
We gathered together the bricks of an ancient chimney that once formed the hearth around which Washington in his infancy had played, and constructed a rude kind of pedestal, on which we reverently placed the FIRST STONE commending it to the respect and protection of the American people in general, and the citizens of Westmoreland County in particular.
Bidding adieu to those who had received us so kindly, we re-embarked, and hoisted our colors, and being provided with a piece of cannon and suitable ammunition, we fired a salute, awakening the echoes that had slept for ages around the hallowed spot.
Custis’ visit to Washington’s birthplace is important for two reasons. First, the freestone slab which he placed at the birthsite was one of the earliest monuments erected in the United States as a memorial to George Washington. Secondly, Custis describes the site as it appeared in 1815 as a “spot where a few scattered bricks alone marked the birthplace of the chief.”
In 1832, the 100th anniversary of Washington’s birth, the Alexandria Gazette noted how the nation had forgotten the ancient Popes Creek farm: “It is surprising that it [Wakefield] should be so little known and visited. Not one in a thousand of the passengers in Steamboats had any knowledge that this ‘solum natale,’ of him whom the whole world honors, is remote but a mile over the waters surface; and hid from his view only by a fringe of wild shrubbery. Will not Wakefield like Mt. Vernon, in after time, be the resort of Patriotic Pilgrims?”
In the July 1833 issue of The North American Magazine an unknown contributor gives a bit of important information about the birth home: “The old house of his [Washington’s] birth has long since mouldered. The cellar over which it stood, now mostly filled up, is about fifty feet in length from east to west, having what seems to be a wine vault in the corner. An orchard of apple trees of modern growth interspersed with other fruit trees, surrounds the old cellar; westerly of which are scattered some apple trees of a very ancient growth, with fruit of a delicious flavour. These trees are monuments of olden times; contemporaries probably with the childhood of the Great Statesman.”
As the years passed during the 19th century, others who visited Washington’s birthplace commented on the neglected condition of the site. James K. Paulding of New York, a friend of Washington Irving and author of A Life of Washington, described Wakefield in 1835 as a place where “A few scanty relics alone remain to mark the spot.... A clump of old decayed fig trees, probably coeval with the mansion, yet exists; a number of vines, and shrubs, and flowers still reproduce themselves every year as if to mark the spot.”
In 1851 the Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser observed: “The birthplace of George Washington is ... marked only by an old brick chimney, a mammoth fig tree, and a freestone slab.... The slab is broken in two.... The neglected condition of the spot bears shame against his country for neglecting to lift up a monument there, to his memory.”
Five years later, in 1856, Bishop William Meade visited Wakefield and found Custis’ freestone slab broken into fragments. The Bishop wrote: “I recently paid a visit to the old family seat of the Washingtons.... The brick chimney is all that remains of the Washington mansion ... except the broken bricks which are scattered about over the spot where it was built. The grandson of Mrs. General Washington, Mr. Custis, of Arlington, some years since placed a slab with a brief inscription on the spot, but it is now in fragments.” The same year Bishop Meade visited Wakefield, Lewis W. Washington offered to the State of Virginia “sixty feet square of ground on which the house stood in which General Washington was born” together with the family burying ground, provided “that the State shall cause the premises to be permanently enclosed by an iron fence, based on a stone foundation, and shall mark the same by suitable, and modest, though substantial tablets, to commemorate for the rising generation these notable spots.”
The old kitchen chimney at Wakefield in 1872, the last surviving structure. It fell the next year. From a painting made by Sarah Pierrpont Barnard in 1872.
Gov. Henry A. Wise was greatly interested in the offer, and visited Westmoreland County on April 27, 1858, for the purpose of inspecting the birthplace site and the Washington family burying ground. As a result of his visit and consequent recommendations, the Commonwealth of Virginia accepted the donation and appropriated $5,000 to carry out the wishes of Lewis W. Washington. Before the protective steps could be carried out, however, the drumbeats of war were echoing across the land, and only the ancient fig trees and wild shrubbery continued to mark the venerable spot.
Five years after the Civil War, a visitor to Wakefield observed that the freestone slab which George Washington Parke Custis had placed over the presumed birthsite with such loving care had disappeared. It had remained there only about 55 years before falling a victim to the vandalism of that time.
Some time in 1873 the old kitchen chimney, which had withstood the ravages of the elements for a century and a half, finally collapsed and fell to the ground. It had stood above ground longer than any other part of Augustine Washington’s plantation buildings which he had built in the 1720’s on Popes Creek.
Ruins of the old kitchen chimney at Wakefield. From a sketch made by Charles C. Perkins in 1879.
The Saving of Washington’s Birthplace
The saving of Washington’s Birthplace was the work of many individuals and organizations, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Wakefield National Memorial Association, and the United States Government.
In 1859 John E. Wilson, owner of most of the Popes Creek-Bridges Creek land, deeded to the Commonwealth of Virginia a right-of-way through his farm to the birthsite and the Washington family burying ground, together with one-half acre of land near the latter place and about 1 acre near the birthsite.
In 1882 the Commonwealth of Virginia vested title in the United States of America to its holdings at the birthsite and burying ground. By an act of Congress approved in 1879, and amended in 1881, the construction of a monument to mark the birthsite and the acquisition of the necessary ground and right-of-way had been authorized. In 1883 Mr. and Mrs. John. E. Wilson sold to the United States nearly 12 acres of land surrounding the birthsite and 9.85 acres constituting a right-of-way 50 feet wide and 1.6 miles long, connecting the birthsite, the family burying ground, and the Potomac River near the mouth of Bridges Creek.
Although Congress had authorized the construction of a monument to mark the birthsite in 1881, 15 years passed before the shaft of Vermont granite was erected. It was a time in our Nation’s history when historical conservation was crowded into the background in favor of more materialistic aims.
In the 1920’s a group of public-spirited women became interested in the old Washington family plantation. They wanted more than a granite monument to memorialize the site where our first President was born, and dreamed of a restored tidewater plantation. On February 23, 1923, under the able leadership of Mrs. Josephine Wheelright Rust, they organized the Wakefield National Memorial Association. Their main objective was to restore the Wakefield plantation and make it a shrine for all people, the date set for completion of the task was 1932—the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth.
Shortly after the Wakefield National Memorial Association was incorporated in 1924, its members raised funds for acquiring land between the birthsite and the Washington family burying ground, and induced John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to purchase 273 acres of the old Wakefield plantation and transfer it to the United States Government. By an act of Congress, approved June 7, 1926, the association was given authority to construct a house at Wakefield as nearly as possible like the one built by Augustine Washington. In 1929 the association acquired additional land, and 2 years later donated its holding at Wakefield (about 100 acres) to the United States.
The walk from the colonial-style garden to the memorial house.
By an act of Congress on January 23, 1930, the 394.47 acres owned by the Federal Government was designated as George Washington Birthplace National Monument, to be administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior.
In 1930-31 the Wakefield National Memorial Association, under its authority from Congress, built an early 18th-century style brick home as a memorial to mark the approximate site of the home in which George Washington was born. (The granite shaft which had marked the site since 1896 was moved to a new location.) As intensive research had produced very little reliable evidence concerning the appearance of the original Popes Creek home, the memorial house erected could not be a replica. It is, however, in keeping with the Virginia plantation scene at the time of Washington’s association with the place.
The new memorial house was opened to the public in July 1931, and a special open house was held on February 22, 1932, the 200th anniversary of George Washington’s birth. Since then the Wakefield National Memorial Association has been active in furnishing the home with suitable pieces of the 1700-50 period. In many instances 18th-century artifacts unearthed near the site of the original home have served as guides in selecting certain items. The objects excavated were surprisingly varied and revealed the nature of many furnishings which were in the original home between the time it was completed in 1726 and the time of the disastrous fire in 1779. Only a few types of the more important artifacts unearthed can be described:
Wine bottles, glasses, seals, and bronze spigot of 1700-80 period found at Wakefield.
Fragments of kettle and spoons unearthed at Wakefield.