and cultivated, with whom George associated on terms. of intimacy, and formed attachments that were ever after valuable to him. In the father he found a friend and adviser, as well as a man skilled in affairs, of wide experience, and of an enlightened understanding. To his fortunate acquaintance with this family he was mainly indebted for the opportunities of performing those acts, which laid the foundation of his subsequent successes and advancement.

I.

Fairfax.

Lord Fairfax, a distant relative of William Fairfax, was Lord a man of an eccentric turn of mind, of great private worth, generous, and hospitable. He had been accustomed to the best society to which his rank entitled him in England. While at the University of Oxford he had a fondness for literature, and his taste and skill in that line may be inferred from his having written some of the papers in the Spectator. Possessing by inheritance a vast tract of country, situate between the Potomac and Rappahannoc Rivers, and stretching across the Allegany Mountains, he made a voyage to Virginia to examine this domain. So well pleased was he with the climate and mode of life that he resolved, after going back to England and arranging his affairs, to return and spend his days in the midst of this wild territory.

At the time of which we are now speaking, he had just arrived to execute his purpose, and was residing with his relative at Belvoir. This was his home for several years; but he at length removed over the Blue Ridge, built a house in the Shenandoah valley, called Greenway Court, and cultivated a large farm. Here he lived in comparative seclusion, often amusing himself with hunting, but chiefly devoted to the care of his estate, to acts of benevolence among his tenants, and to such public duties as devolved upon him, in the narrow sphere he had chosen; a friend of liberty, honored for his uprightness, esteemed for the amenity of his manners and his practical virtues. He died at the advanced age of ninety-two, near the close of the American revolution.

CHAPTER

I.

1748.

Appointed

surveyor of Lord Fairfax's lands.

survey or among the Allegany Mountains.

William Fairfax was born in England. He joined the army in early life, and served in Spain; went next to the East Indies, and afterwards took part in an expedition against the Island of New Providence. He was successively governor of that Island, and chief justice of the Bahamas; and was thence transferred at his request to an office in New England. While there he yielded to the solicitation of Lord Fairfax to take the agency of his affairs in Virginia, and had been several years in that employment, when the latter assumed the charge into his own hands.

The immense tracts of wild lands, belonging to Lord Fairfax in the rich valleys of the Allegany Mountains, had not been surveyed. Settlers were finding their way up the streams, selecting the fertile places, and securing an occupancy without warrant or license. To enable the proprietor to claim his quitrents and give legal titles, it was necessary that those lands should be divided into lots and accurately measured. So favorable an opinion had he formed of the abilities and attainments of young Washington, that he intrusted to him this responsible service; and he set off on his first surveying expedition in March, just a month from the day he was sixteen years old, accompanied by George Fairfax, the eldest son of William Fairfax.

The enterprise was arduous, requiring discretion and skill, and attended with privations and fatigues to which Employed as he had not been accustomed. After crossing the first range of the Alleganies, the party entered a wilderness. From that time their nights were passed under the open sky, or in tents or rude cabins affording but a treacherous shelter against the inclemency of the weather. The winds sometimes beat upon them, and prostrated them to the ground. Winter still lingered on the summits of the mountains; the rivers, swollen by melting snows and recent rains, were impassable at the usual fords, except by swimming the horses; the roads and paths through the woods were obstructed by swamps, rocks, and precipices.