Robert Brent (c.1730–1780), the son of George and Catherine Trimming ham Brent, lived at Woodstock on Aquia Creek in Stafford County and owned the quarry at Aquia. Brent had undoubtedly come to see GW about the estate of Brent’s aunt Elizabeth Clifton. Mrs. Clifton had appointed GW one of her executors, but GW was showing some reluctance to serve in an active capacity. Brent, another of the executors, wrote GW in Feb. 1774, urging him to accept the office. He added that he did not feel it would be a troublesome business, for Mrs. Ann Slaughter, who was Mrs. Clifton’s only daughter and heiress, would probably continue to live apart from her husband, and in that case “the trust may be said in some measure to have ceas’d, as it does on her becoming a Widow” (DLC:GW).