n Virginia (1730) as
christening a child in King William Parish, as it was called,--after the
King who had favoured this Huguenot colony.

In 1727 the town of Fredericksburg was founded. In I732 Col. Byrd
visited the place, and wrote: "Besides Col. Willis, who is the top man
of the place, there are only one merchant, a tailor, a smith, an
ordinary keeper, and a lady who acts both as a doctress and
coffeewoman." This "Col. Willis" had married Washington's aunt (and
godmother), and there were other families of the neighbourhood connected
with the Washingtons. It was not until 1739 that Captain Augustine
Washington (the General's father) went to reside near Fredericksburg.
Soon after the birth of George (Feb. 11, 1731 Old Style) the family left
their homestead in Westmoreland county, Virginia, and resided on their
farm, now known as "Mount Vernon." (It was so named by Washington's
elder half-brother, Lawrence, who built the mansion, in 1743-5, in
honour of the English Admiral Vernon, with whom he served as an officer
at Carthagena.) Although he nowhere alludes to the fact, George
Washington's earliest memories, as I have elsewhere shown[1], were
associated with the estate on which he lavished so much devotion, and
which the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association has made his most
characteristic monument. The Rev. Jonathan Boucher, teacher of Mrs.
George Washington's son John Custis, says that Washington was "taught by
a convict servant whom his father had bought for a schoolmaster." This
was probably one of a shipload of convicts brought by Captain Augustine
Washington from England in 1737. When the family removed to the
neighbourhood of Fredericksburg (from which, however, they were
separated by the Rappahannock river), the children went to school
(probably) at Falmouth,--a village fifty years older than
Fredericksburg, and about two miles above, on the opposite side of the
river. A church had been erected in Falmouth (Brunswick parish), but that
in Fredericksburg was not completed until some years later. After the
death of his father (April 12, 1743) George was sent to reside with his
half-brother Augustine, at "Wakefield," the old homestead in
Westmoreland where he was born. He returned to live with his mother near
Fredericksburg, in 1715. That he then went to school in Fredericksburg
appears by a manuscript left by Col. Byrd Willis, grandson of Col. Harry
Willis, founder of the town, in which he states that his father, Lewis