[75] For this survey Washington received the sum of £2 3s 0d on the 25th of July, 1749, as shown by entry in his cash book; a copy of which is in the Toner Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
[76] Culpeper county, Virginia, was formed by act of assembly in 1748, and named in honor of Lord Thomas Culpeper, governor of Virginia from 1682 to 1686. The old family name was spelled with two p's, but in using the name as a locality one p is dropped. Its original form, however, was Colepeper. The widow of Lord Culpeper spelled her name and wrote it, "Mar. Culpeper—Leeds Castle, Dec. 19, 1706." Lord Culpeper and Lord Arlington had obtained from Charles II in 1672 a grant of proprietary rights over the whole of Virginia, but within a short time, in consequence of resistance by the colonists, surrendered all except quit rents and escheats, and a duty of three half-pence per pound on tobacco. Two years after ceasing to be governor, Lord Culpeper, who had become by purchase sole owner of the grant, further abandoned all his rights except that of property in the lands of that part of the Northern Neck beyond the Blue Ridge, with an annual pension of £600 for twenty years in lieu of what he gave up. This estate of about 5,700,000 acres of land in the Shenandoah valley and the mountains beyond, went to his daughter and heiress, Catherine, who became the wife of Thomas, the 5th Lord Fairfax, and from her to their son Thomas the 6th, and the first American Lord Fairfax of Washington's time. Lord Culpeper had been one of the commissioners of plantations under Charles II, and was a man of ability for business and public affairs, although rapacious; and, as governor, wholly British, without that sympathy for Virginia interest, such as Berkeley, with all his faults, had shown. The county of Culpeper, however, was conspicuous for the patriotism of its inhabitants during the Revolution. Her "minute men," Randolph said on the floor of the United States Senate, "were raised in a minute, armed in a minute, marched in a minute, fought in a minute, and vanquished in a minute." The motto on their flag was, "The Culpeper Minute Men," along the top border; in the center a curled rattlesnake with head erect and rattling tail; on either side the words "Liberty—or Death;" and beneath, along the lower border, "Don't Tread on Me." In the clerk's office of Culpeper court house is recorded the following: "20 July, 1749 [O. S.] George Washington, Gent., produced a commission from the President and Master of William and Mary College, appointing him to be surveyor of this county, which was read, and thereupon he took the usual oaths," etc.
[77] Washington, S. C. C.—This is supposed to be an official check mark signature of George Washington as a licensed surveyor of Culpeper county. The plat of this survey is published by Sparks, vol. 1, p. 14, and is reproduced here, as the editor has failed, so far, in finding the original among any of the Washington papers extant. The plat bears date two days after he filed his certificate and took the necessary oath before the court in Culpeper county referred to in the preceding note.
FAC SIMILE.
Copied from a Manuscript in the handwriting of
WASHINGTON.
Æt. 17