Mason Locke Weems (1759–1825), born in Anne Arundel County, Md., spent part of his youth in England, where in 1784 he was ordained a priest of the Anglican church, returning to Maryland to be rector (1784–89) of All Hallows Parish at South River in Anne Arundel County. Writing to GW in 1792 Weems recalled he had been “introduced to your Excellency by Doctor [James] Craik [Jr.] . . . some Years ago at M. Vernon” (6 July 1792, PHi: Gratz Collection). In 1795 Weems married Frances Ewell (1775–1843), a cousin of Dr. Craik and daughter of Col. Jesse Ewell of Bel Air, Prince William County, where the Weemses later made their home. Weems supported his wife and their ten children by traveling the east coast promoting and selling popular books, preaching in various sanctuaries (including Pohick Church), and writing moral essays and biographies of American heroes, including one of the earliest biographies of GW, which was published in 1800 (HAYDEN description begins Horace Edwin Hayden. Virginia Genealogies. A Genealogy of the Glassell Family of Scotland and Virginia, also of the Families of Ball, Brown, Bryan, Conway, Daniel, Ewell, Holladay, Lewis, Littlepage, Moncure, Peyton, Robinson, Scott, Taylor, Wallace, and others, of Virginia and Maryland. 1891. Reprint. Baltimore, 1973. description ends , 339; see WEEMS description begins Mason L. Weems. The Life of Washington. Edited by Marcus Cunliffe. Cambridge, Mass., 1962. description ends ).