George Mason II had moved to Pohick in 1690 but his home was considered such an outpost that runaway slaves were returned there by Indians. In 1746 the fourth George Mason moved to his property on Dogue Neck and built Gunston Hall in 1758. By 1734 Captain Augustine Washington moved his family to his plantation on Little Hunting Creek. His home was destroyed by fire and he moved back to the north bank of the Rappahannock in 1739. In the spring of 1741 William Fairfax built Belvoir. After his daughter married Lawrence Washington in 1743, the original part of Mt. Vernon was finished.
Along with the gentry's influx into the county, however, there was also the influx of convicts. Heretofore this land had, as stated, been occupied mostly by indentured slaves. When these indentures achieved their freedom and became land-holders in their own right, they found they too needed help for harvesting the fields. England, recognizing this need and being anxious to rid herself of an undesirable element, began to export convicts to America. Benjamin Franklin called this "the most cruel insult that perhaps was ever offered by one people to another".
Robert Carter, in his first term as proprietary agent, made numerous grants to the Irish and Hugenots and they took a substantial number of these convicts who were gin fiends, beggars, murderers and arsonists. These cheaper servants after serving seven years became parasitic wanderers, creating hotbeds of undisciplined passion wherever they went.
They received credit for burning many warehouses, private homes, public buildings, churches and finally the Capitol itself in Williamsburg. Arson became epidemic in the Northern Neck.
All legislative efforts to abort this infiltration by convicts were stopped by the "greedy planter" who loved the cheapness of this labor and the practice of importation survived the Revolution.
Consequently, this area was comprised of gentry, indentures, convicts and slaves. Yet the homes of the former two were similar in many ways. Their houses were made of wood; their roofs were made of oak shingles. The walls were made of clapboard sealed on the inside with mortar made of oyster shell lime which gave the room a look of antiquated whiteness. Some houses were constructed of bricks made by the colonists themselves. Most houses consisted of only two rooms and several closets on the ground floor with two prophets chambers above. They built separate houses for the kitchen, for Christian servants, for Negro slaves, and several for curing tobacco. Each household gave the appearance of a small village. There were no stables. Cattle and horses were allowed to run in the woods.
Merchandise was supplied by traveling salesmen from England who took their loaded ships from creek to creek.
Due to the fact that most people lived on widely separated plantations there were very few schools. Sometimes a house was erected on one of the old fields which had outlived its usefulness and there the children of the plantation owner along with those of relatives and neighbors would attend school under the supervision of a tutor hired by the main family. These were called "Old Field Schools". They were made of logs held together by wooden pins. The roof was shingled with hand-hewn wood shingles and a large field stone fireplace was used to heat the room. There were few books available and the tiresome methods of teaching were heavily interspersed with strict discipline. School began at eight o'clock in the morning and a recess was taken at eleven. It opened again at one o'clock and closed at four o'clock in the afternoon.
Public school systems did not make their appearance until 1857. As a rule, the parish halls of the various churches were used to house the students.