The journal kept by George Washington during his visit to Barbadoes in company with his brother, will be given in a separate work soon to be issued in its chronological order by the editor. The journal here presented to the public is, in the main, confined to Washington's daily entries, memoranda and field notes of surveys of land situated between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany mountains.
Unfortunately the records of his surveys are not consecutive, and it is quite evident that they represent but a part, and probably but a small part, of the land surveyed by Washington for Lord Fairfax and others. The notes of surveys here published are all that can be found or that are now known to exist. It is to be hoped, however, that if other books of his field notes of surveys have escaped destruction, they may yet be discovered. This hope is encouraged from the fact that the laws of the colony required surveyors, upon retiring from their official stations as county surveyors, to deposit their field books of notes of surveys with the records of the county. How far this law was complied with, the editor is unable to say. It is a mistake, however, to infer that Washington was constantly employed in actually running lines and taking field notes. He was largely charged with the supervision of Lord Fairfax's land office, and the records thereto belonging, and was his principal adviser in his land surveys, directing the men employed in the field work.
This journal, with its memoranda and surveys, makes a valuable addition to our knowledge of the life and employments of Washington in his youth. Here are also preserved the names of nearly three hundred of the early settlers and first land owners in the great valley of Virginia, for whom Washington made surveys, or who assisted him in this business.
It was a cherished hope of the editor that he might be able to give, in notes, brief sketches of the pioneers in the valley here named, through the assistance of their descendants, who, in many instances, reside upon lands surveyed by Washington for their ancestors. In this, however, he has been disappointed.
The journal, memoranda and surveys found in these books have all been copied with literal exactness and are here printed just as they were recorded by the hand of their author. This literalness is adhered to in the interest of truth and for the benefit of earnest students of history unable to consult personally the originals. Washington requires no apology for any apparent want of style or other marks of hasty composition in this journal. It was written in the nature of a memorandum intended for himself alone. His thoughts, even in these youthful productions, flow easily and in an orderly and consecutive manner. His sentences are never involved or obscure, and his observations are always apt and instructive; and, although a youth in years when this journal was written, he was dealing ably with important interests, and deporting himself in a manly manner, and associating on terms of intimacy with the foremost men of the day. He seems to have had no idle boy life, but was a man with manly instincts and ambitions from his youth. Time and accidents are slowly, but effectually, destroying the precious original manuscripts, so that a literal and authentic copy is a great desideratum. No liberty whatever is taken by the editor with the text as recorded by Washington. The notes which are added, it is hoped, may prove of interest.
J. M. T.
Surveying
A Plan of Major Law: Washingtons Turnip Field as Survey'd by me
This 27 Day of February 1747/8
GW