George Washington Papers

[Diary entry: 8 November 1771]

8. At Colo. Bassetts all day. Colo. Lewis & Mr. Mercer came here.

On the previous day GW had given Fielding Lewis £200 cash with which to pay the balance due for the house and two lots in Fredericksburg where Mary Ball Washington was to live (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 336, 345). The owner of the property, Michael Robinson, of Spotsylvania County, deeded it to GW on 18 Sept. 1772, but Mrs. Washington apparently moved into the house before spring (CROZIER [2] description begins William Armstrong Crozier, ed. Spotsylvania County, 1721–1800: Being Transcriptions, from the Original Files at the County Court House, of Wills, Deeds, Administrators’ and Guardians’ Bonds, Marriage Licenses, and Lists of Revolutionary Pensioners. New York, 1905. description ends , 294; see main entry for 11 April 1772). Although GW paid the full purchase price of £275 and retained the title to the property, he charged his mother nothing to live there for the nearly 18 years remaining of her life.

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