ngton family in America, and George Washington was his
great-grandson.

George was baptized on the 5th of April following, when he was about six
weeks old. Mrs. Mildred Gregory acted as godmother, and Mr. Beverly
Whiting and Captain Christopher Brooks, godfathers.

When George was four or five years old, his father resolved to move to a
plantation on the banks of the Rappahannock River, opposite
Fredericksburg.

"There are many advantages in that locality," he remarked to his wife;
"besides, the land is better."

"There can't be much fault found with the land anywhere in this part of
the country," responded Mrs. Washington. "It needs little but using."

"Very true; but somehow I have taken a great liking to the banks of the
Rappahannock," continued Mr. Washington. "The children will like the
change, I know."

"That may be; children like change; a novelty just suits them," answered
Mrs. Washington. "I have never known them to express dissatisfaction
with this place. They are about as happy as children can well be."

"There can be no doubt of that, judging from daily observation,"
responded her husband, somewhat facetiously. "If a change does not add
to the sum total of their happiness, I trust that it will not subtract
much from it."

"Understand me," continued Mrs. Washington, "I am not setting myself up
in opposition to your plan of removing. It may prove the very best thing
for us all. We sha'n't know till we try."

"Well, I think I shall try it," added Mr. Washington.

And he did try it. He removed to the aforesaid locality in the year
1737. The estate was already his own.

The reader must know from what has been said already, that estates of
two, three and five thousand acres, in Virginia, at that time, were
common. Many wealthy English families, fond of rural life, and coveting
ample grounds for hunting and roaming, had settled in the "Old
Dominion," where land was cheap as well as fertile. The Washington
family was one of them. From the day that John Washington and his
brother settled in Virginia, they and their numerous descendants were
large landholders. When George was forty-one years of age, just before
the stirring scenes of the Revolution, we find him writing to a Mr.
Calvert of George Washington Parke Custis:

"Mr. Custis' estate consists of about _fifteen thousand acres_ of land,
a good part of it adjoining the city of Williamsburg, and none of it
forty miles from that place; several lots in