POTOMAC MILLS
Mill owned by George’s father, Augustine Washington. Acquired by him in 1728.
Popes Creek Farm
(Wakefield)
Augustine Washington, George’s father, purchased 150 acres here in 1717-18 from Joseph Abbington. Here he built a brick home between 1723 and 1726. Here George Washington was born on February 22, 1732. The home burned to the ground in 1779.
Part of the court record in a suit over the building of Washington’s birthplace. From Westmoreland Records and Inventories, 1723-46.
Augustine Washington
EARLY LIFE.
George Washington’s father, Augustine Washington, was born at Mattox Creek, Westmoreland County, Va., in 1694. He remembered little of his father, as Lawrence Washington died when Augustine was only 4 years old. Two years later his mother married George Gale, and during the autumn of 1700, the family moved to England. Their family life abroad was short-lived, however, as Augustine’s mother died a year later, when he was only seven. His stepfather, who seems to have been a kindly man, sent Augustine and his brother, John, to Appelby School. Their schooling, too, was cut short, for a year or two later the boys returned to Virginia to live with their elder cousin, John Washington of “Chotank,” whose plantation was located on the Potomac, about 20 miles up the river from Bridges Creek. While little is known of Augustine’s teen-age activities one can surmise that he enjoyed plantation life to the utmost while living with various relatives whose farms were located on the wooded south shore of the Potomac River.