The survey was completed on February 28, 1752 and Beall's and Gordon's land found "most convenient." Each gentleman was offered two town lots besides the price of condemnation. George Gordon chose numbers 48 and 52. George Beall had refused to recognize the proceedings of the commissioners in any way, so he was notified that "if he did not make his choice of lots within 10 days from February 28th, he could only blame himself for the consequences." After reflecting for a week he sent the following answer:
If I must part with my property by force, I had better save a little than be totally demolished. Rather than none, I accept these lots, numbers 72 and 79, said to be Mr. Henderson's and Mr. Edmonston's. But I do hereby protest and declare that my acceptance of the said lots, which is by force, shall not debar me from future redress from the Commissions or others, if I can have the rights of a British subject. God save the King.
George Beall.
March 7, 1752.
Can't you see how difficult it was for the old gentleman (he must then, by the records, have been about sixty years of age or more) to cooperate with the changes that were coming to ruin, as he thought, his comfortable and profitable plantation life?
Two hundred and eighty pounds were paid for the sixty acres of the original town. The southern boundary was the river, the western about where the college now stands, the eastern a few feet west of the present 30th Street, and the northern boundary was a few feet south of the present N Street. The only boundary stone still existing is the one that was No. 2 in the survey, the northeastern corner of the town, and is now in the garden of number 3014 N. Street. There were eighty lots in the original town.
The name has been variously attributed to George II, the King then reigning; to the two Georges from whom the land was taken, and to George Washington, which last is, of course, absurd, as he was then a young man of twenty, engaged in surveying the properties of Lord Fairfax.