on the records as De Wessyngton. The De Wessyngtons appear at different times and always in important positions, till 1264 the name of William Weshington is recorded on the roll of loyal knights who fought for their sovereign in the battle of Lewes, when the king was taken prisoner. Here the De is left off and the name takes a new form.

In 1416 John De Wessyngton was elected prior of the Benedic tine convent, with a cathedral attached. This was an ancient and honorable position, taking rank with a bishopric. There had been many disputes about the claims and privileges of this convent. John De Wessyngton took up the dispute in a tract, which thoroughly set forth the rights of the convent and settled the long controversy in its favor. It won him much renown in his time.

The De Wessyngtons separated and went into different countries, engaged in different pursuits, some in the learned professions, some as great land owners, some were knighted for valorous services, some associated with religious houses. Gradually the De was dropped from the family name, and in the later records it appears as it is now spelled, WASHINGTON.

The branch of the family from which our Washington descended, sprang from Laurence Washington, Esq., of Gray's Inn, son of John Washington, of Lancashire.

This Laurence Washington was for a time mayor of Northampton, and received in 1538 a grant of the manor of Sulgrave with other lands adjoining. Sulgrave remained the landed estate of the family till 1620, and was called "The Washington Manor." Several of the descendents of this family distinguished themselves in wars and public services. This branch of the family was always true to the king, and under the protectorate when the king was in exile, many of his faithful subjects sought homes in other lands, some of them in the new colony of Virginia, which, from its fidelity to the exiled monarch and the Anglican church, had become a welcome refuge to the cavaliers. Among those who came here were John and Andrew Washington, grandsons of the grantee of the Sulgrave estate.

The brothers reached Virginia in 1657 and made extensive

land purchases in Westmoreland county, between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. John made his home on Bridge's creek and married Miss Anne Pope of the same county, thus at once identifying himself with the interests and life of the colony. He entered largely into the agricultural pursuits of the county; became a magistrate; a member of the house of burgesses; a colonel in the military forces that operated against the Seneca Indians, and a tower of strength in the community of which he was an honored member. The parish in which he resided was named for him. He is buried in the family burial place on Bridge's creek.

His extensive landed estate and accumulations remained in the family. Augustine Washington, John's grandson, was the father of George Washington. Augustine was born in 1694, fortyseven years after his grandfather reached America. He was married April 20, 1715, to Jane Butler, daughter of Caleb Butler, of the same county. He had four children by her, but only Lawrence and Augustine survived the years of childhood; their mother died November 24, 1728. March 6, 1730, he married Mary Ball, a young and interesting girl, regarded as the belle of the neighborhood. Six children came of this marriage: George, Samuel, John Augustine, Charles, Elizabeth and Mildred. Mildred died in infancy.

GEORGE, the eldest, the great general, president, man, whom we can scarcely think of as a child, was born February 22, 1732, in the old home on Bridge's creek. This old family home of the Washingtons occupied a sightly position, overlooking a great reach of the Potomac river and valley. The house had four rooms on the ground floor, a high pointed roof with rooms in it, and immense chimneys at each end. The house is entirely gone. There is nothing there to mark it as once a-home, but the inscription on a stone which tells the traveler that this is the birth-place of George Washington. The record of the Washington ancestry is a noble one, showing that the family through every variety of experience and trial had kept a high respectability, and met all the demands of noble life with ability, fortitude and success. There seems always to have been in the

family a strong tendency to the independence of agricultural pursuits. They were lords of land. They were patriarchal men, and had large families, flocks and possessions. They seem through the whole six centuries of their known history, to have been loyal to their king, patriotic and devout. They were a large-minded, conservative, generous, devout race of men, abreast of their times, provident, broad-seeing, magnets around which property and men naturally gathered, centers of power which their communities always felt with confidence and respect.

BOYHOOD OF WASHINGTON.

The trite saying that "the boy is father of the man," is seldom found truer than in the case of Washington. Our Virginia boy that we have found has twenty generations of good English blood running in his veins, and the strong minds and hearts of a long line of noble ancestors behind him, is favored with some excellent surroundings that are likely to do more and better for him than they would for many boys less thoughtful and sensitive to such surroundings. He had no village near him where the boys congregate often to amuse each other, dissipate time, originate nonsense, concoct mischief and create demoralizing tastes. He had no resort of evil associates, to counteract the good influences of his home and his neighbors. He had the open country which he early appreciated, the business of his father's plantation, his good home, his two older half brothers, who were high minded, and the strong interest of the family in the English church, which in Virginia was the prevailing church.

The tradition of the neighborhood represents his father, Augustine, as seeking in ways peculiar to himself to impress upon George the lessons of virtue and religion. The strong mother, who was always a woman of high force of character, did her full part in giving shape and force to the character of her first born.

Lawrence was fifteen years older than George, and was sent to England to be educated. He returned, an educated and accomplished young man, when George was seven or eight years

old. He took a great interest in George and the two became fast and life-long friends. The stories of his school life, his teachers and friends in England, of English customs, manners, society, politics and men, which Lawrence told with youthful enthusiasm, to amuse and instruct George, were of immense importance to him. The educated thought, language and manners of Lawrence had their influence. Lawrence became the model man for George to imitate and grow up to. Few things, probably, in his boyhood did more to elevate and give character and cast to George's mind than this constant association with his educated and high-minded brother.

There was a

Soon after George was born, the family moved to an estate in Stafford county, opposite Fredericksburg. The house to which they went was similar to the one they left, and stood on rising ground overlooking the Rappahannock. meadow in front of the house which was often George's playground. He was a robust boy, large of his age, tall, athletic, vigorous and fond of all athletic sports. He grew up among the fine horses of the plantation, their friend and rider. By the time he was twelve years old he felt himself equal to the management of any stalwart and spirited colt. In jumping, running, climbing, pitching quoits, throwing stones, lifting, wrestling, and all the active games of the youth of his neighborhood, he was equal to the best. He was so full of muscular activity that he delighted in these sports. It is said that his fondness for them continued far into his manly years. These things show that he was a wide-awake boy and must have been a great favorite among the boys of his neighborhood.

Lawrence had inherited much of the military spirit of his ancestors. His education in England had quickened it. His two voyages across the Atlantic had taught him to love the sea. Two or three years after his return from England, a difficulty with the Spaniards in the West Indies broke out. France lent aid to Spain. A regiment of four battalions was raised in the colonies and sent to Jamaica. There was a quick outburst of military ardor in Virginia. Lawrence Washington, now twentytwo, caught the spirit and enlisted. He obtained a captain's

commission in the regiment and embarked with it for the West Indies. He served under General Wentworth and Admiral Vernon, and acquired the friendship of both. He served with zeal through that campaign, and returned to rehearse its vivid experiences in the ears of George.

George, too, had inherited the military spirit of his ancestors, and that spirit was easily aroused in him. The recitals of Indian wars, the stories of ancestral military exploits, Lawrence's observations in England, and now his actual experience in an army on sea and land, fired the military spirit in the boy's heart, and he became the military leader of the boys at school. He organized them, drilled them, fought mimic battles with them, and thus in his own and their hearts began that training which served them so well in after years.

Lawrence came back from.the West Indies intending to seck promotion in the army and devote himself to military pursuits. But becoming acquainted with Miss Anne Fairfax and falling in love with her he changed his plan, married her and settled down on his estate which, in honor of his admiral, he named Mount Vernon.

Augustine, the father, died April 12, 1743, after a brief illness, aged forty-nine. He left large possessions, which he divided by will; giving Lawrence the estate on the Potomac, which he named for his admiral, and several shares in iron works; to Augustine the estate on Bridge's creek; to George the estate on the Rappahannock, when he should become of age; and to the rest their share of his property; but put all the property of the children under age into the mother's hands to manage till they should reach their majority. Augustine soon married an heiress of the same county of his estate, Miss Anne Aylett.

George was left fatherless at eleven years of age; so the responsibilities of the household and estate rested upon him and his mother. Thus at twelve he took up a man's cares and responsibilities in connection with his mother. Great school was this for such a boy.