red with the striped Virginia
cloth so common in old days, was in the possession of George
W. Bassett, Esq., of Farmington, Hanover county, who married a
grand-niece of Washington. At that time, too, the birthplace, which
had been destroyed previous to the Revolution, was much more plainly
marked than it is now. From its associations, and from its natural
beauties as well, the place was doubly interesting. Standing half
a mile from the junction of Pope's Creek with the Potomac River,
it commanded a view of the Maryland shore and of the course of the
Potomac for many miles. The house was a low-pitched, single-storied
frame dwelling, with four rooms on the first floor, and a huge chimney
at each end on the outside--the style of the better class of houses of
those days. A stone, placed there to mark its site by G.W.P. Custis,
bore the simple inscription:

"HERE, ON THE 11TH OF FEBRUARY (O.S.), 1732, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS
BORN."

Such was its appearance in 1834 or '35, when Howe visited it. Its
present condition may be gathered from what the writer of the letter
in response to the London querist has to say about the site itself,
that being all that is left of a place so memorable and so deserving
of perpetuation:

"I have had no opportunity to obtain the sketch I promised you.
Indeed, there is virtually no material to make a sketch of. The
birthplace is now simply an old field lying waste, with indistinct
vestiges of a human habitation. An old chimney stands which belonged
to an outhouse (kitchen or laundry), some remains of a cellar, and the
foundations of a house in which tradition states Washington was born.
There was a stone slab, with a simple inscription, placed on the spot
some sixty years ago by G. W: P. Custis, to denote the place, but it
was long ago removed from its original position, mutilated and broken,
so that only a fragment remains."

That a place of such interest--one might call it sacred--should be
left to decay and obliteration is no new thing in Virginia. Enemies
might well declare that neglect of her mighty dead is characteristic
of the old commonwealth. The truth is, she has a great many dead to
care for, and of late years all her time has been absorbed in the care
of her living. But something has been done, or attempted to be done,
to rescue Washington's birthplace from oblivion. As far back as 1858
an act was passed by the General Assembly of Virginia, accepting from
Lewis Washington a grant o