Augustine had bought his tract of one hundred and fifty acres of land on Popes Creek from Joseph Abbington in 1718. David Jones, a local builder and undertaker, had contracted to build the home for five thousand pounds of tobacco with extra amounts in cash for incidentals. He was probably assisted by Augustine's slaves and indentured servants. The house was completed and occupied by Augustine and his first wife about 1726, so it was still rather new when Mary came to live there.
Mary probably found it not too difficult to assume her duties as mistress of the plantation for the farm activities at Popes Creek were about the same as those she had known before her marriage on the plantations in lower Westmoreland.
Many years later the Popes Creek plantation became known as Wakefield.
THE WAR PATH
The Shenandoah Valley was the historic war trail of the Six Nations of Indians of the north in their warfare with the southern Indian tribes. These wars had commenced before the settlement of Jamestown. There is no evidence to show that the Valley was inhabited to any extent by Indians immediately before the coming of the white man to the New World. Scattered burial mounds prove that Indians lived there at an early period but their history has been lost.
Governor Spotswood believed that this migration of Indian warriors from north to south would hold back the settlement of Virginia. He called a conference which was attended by the northern Indians and the governors of New York and Pennsylvania, and himself and other representatives from Virginia. At this conference the Indians were persuaded to limit their travel. In the Treaty of Albany, signed in 1722, the northern Indians promised to let the southern Indians live in peace, and agreed that their warriors would not cross Virginia without a passport. Disregard of this treaty was punishable with death or transportation to the West Indies and sale into slavery.
Governor Spotswood bound the bargain by dramatically handing the interpreter his "golden-horseshoe," which had been pinned at his breast, and bidding him to give it to the speaker and to tell him that "there was an inscription on it which signified that it would help him to pass over the mountains; and that when any of their people should come to Virginia with a pass, they should bring that with them."
After this treaty was signed the Northern Neck could be opened to settlers westward. And the planters could now patent immense tracts of land.
FALMOUTH
About this time there was considerable trade between the Northern Neck and both Ireland and Scotland. It has been said that Virginia tobacco helped Glasgow, Scotland, to prosperity. A street in that city was named for Virginia, and at one time Virginia merchants "thronged that street and were regarded with such respect that other men gave way that they might pass." Among these gentlemen were some of the planters from the Potomac. In 1720 George Mason III, was given the freedom of the city of Glasgow, in the form of a parchment "Burgess Ticket."