From George Washington to Sarah Cary Fairfax, 30 April 1755
To Sarah Cary Fairfax
[Bullskin Plantation, 30 April 1755]
To Mrs Fairfax—Belvoir
Dear Madam
In order to engage your corrispondance, I think it expedient, just is incumbent on me to deserve it; which I shall endeavour to do, by embracing the earliest, and every oppertunity, of writing to you.
It will be needless to expatiate dwell on the pleasures that a communication corrispondence of this kind will would afford me, as it shall let it suffice to say—a corrispondance with my Friends is the greatest satisfaction I expect to enjoy, in the course of the Campaigne, and that none of my Friends are able to convey more real delight than you are—to whom from none shall I derive such satisfaction as from yours—for to you I stand indebted for so many many Obligations.
If an old Proverb can claim my belief, I am will apply to my case I shall certainly close ⟨erasure⟩ est share of with success—for surely no Man ever could have made a worse beginning than I have done: out of 4 Horses which we I brought from home, one was I have killd outright, and the other 3 are renderd unfit for use;1 so that I have been detaind here three days already, and how much longer I may continue to be so, ⟨erasure⟩ the Womb of time must only can discover.2
I must beg my Compliments to Miss Hannah Fairfax, Miss Dent,3 and any other’s that think me worthy of their enquirys. I am Madam Yr most Obedt Servt
Go: Washington
LB (original), DLC:GW; LB, DLC:GW.
1. On 6 May 1755 GW told Lord Fairfax that he had lost three horses.
2. GW reached his Bullskin plantation about 27 April, after having come from Mount Vernon by way of Nicholas Minor’s ordinary, now site of Leesburg, Va. He seems to have left Bullskin on 1 May.
3. Miss Fairfax was Hannah Fairfax (1742–1804), the youngest child of William Fairfax and his second wife, Deborah Clarke Fairfax. In 1764 Hannah married GW’s first cousin Warner Washington, who lived in Gloucester County but a few years later moved with his family to the Shenandoah Valley. Miss Dent is probably the Elizabeth Dent who along with Ann Spearing signed a letter that Sarah Cary Fairfax wrote to GW on 26 July upon his return from the Battle of the Monongahela. Of the several Elizabeth Dents living in this part of the world at this time this is most likely to be the Elizabeth Dent (1727–1796) who was the spinster daughter of Peter Dent (1694–1757) of Maryland.