54511[Diary entry: 13 March 1748] (Washington Papers)
Sunday March 13. Rode to his Lordships Quarter about 4 Miles higher up the River we went through most beautiful Groves of Sugar Trees & spent the best part of the Day in admiring the Trees & richness of the Land. It has usually been suggested that the party proceeded on 13 Mar. to Fairfax’s land across the Shenandoah—the area known as Greenway Court ( FREEMAN Douglas Southall Freeman. George...
54512[Diary entry: 12 March 1748] (Washington Papers)
Saturday March 12th. This Morning Mr. James Genn the surveyor came to us. We travel’d over the Blue Ridge to Capt. Ashbys on Shannondoa River. Nothing remarkable happen’d. John Ashby (1707–1789) was a member of a prominent frontier family. His father, Thomas Ashby, had settled in Stafford County in 1710 and moved to what is now Fauquier County before 1748. In 1741 John Ashby married Jean Combs...
54513[Diary entry: 11 March 1748] (Washington Papers)
Fryday March 11th. 1747/8. Began my Journey in Company with George Fairfax Esqr.; we travell’d this day 40 Miles to Mr. George Neavels in Prince William County. The two dates used by GW are explained by the difference between New Style and Old Style dating. Until 1752 England, Ireland, and the colonies followed the Julian Calendar (Old Style). Under England’s interpretation of the Julian...
54514School Exercises (Washington Papers)
[ Ferry Farm, 1744–1748 ]. The earliest manuscripts among GW’s surviving papers are the schoolwork of his boyhood, amounting to 218 pages of exercises, mostly in mathematics and surveying. Because of the special character of these documents and because with appropriate annotation they will fill a volume in themselves, the exercises have been set aside for separate publication. At his death GW...
54515George Washington’s Professional Surveys (Washington Papers)
Between the ages of 17 and 20 GW was a practicing professional land surveyor. During that time he made more than 190 surveys, nearly all of them for grants of new lands on the frontiers of Lord Fairfax’s Northern Neck Proprietary. Frontier surveying was a lucrative business in Virginia at the middle of the eighteenth century, as swarms of settlers and speculators laid claim to the colony’s...
54516The Letter Book for the Braddock Campaign (Washington Papers)
The Preface to this volume includes an extended discussion of the problems relating to the letter books that GW kept during the French and Indian War, all of which are in the Washington Papers at the Library of Congress. There are two manuscript copies of the letter book for the Braddock campaign in the library. One is the original letter book kept by GW during the campaign and revised by him....