George Washington Papers

[Diary entry: 29 March 1775]

29. Got to Fredericksburg abt. 11 Oclock. Dined at Colo. Lewis’s & spent the Evening at Weedons.

George Weedon was described by an English traveler who stopped at his tavern about this time as “very active and zealous in blowing the flames of sedition” (SMYTH description begins J. F. D. Smyth. A Tour in the United States of America: containing An Account of the Present Situation of that Country; The Population, Agriculture, Commerce, Customs, and Manners of the Inhabitants; Anecdotes of several Members of the Congress, and General Officers in the American Army; and Many other very singular and interesting Occurrences . . .. 2 vols. London, 1784. description ends , 2:151). Weedon was indeed a vigorous advocate of the American position; by April 1776 he had rented his tavern to another innkeeper and had accepted a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army (Va. Gaz., P, 6 Oct. 1775 and 5 April 1776). He became a brigadier general in Feb. 1777 and served until 1783, seeing action at Brandywine, Germantown, and Yorktown. After the Revolution he returned to Fredericksburg, where he died in 1793.

Index Entries