Lawrence Washington (1718-1752)
| Lawrence Washington | |
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| Member of the House of Burgesses | |
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In office 1744–1752 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 1718 Virginia |
| Died | July 1752 (aged 33–34) Mount Vernon, Virginia |
| Cause of death | Tuberculosis |
| Spouse(s) | Anne Fairfax (1743–1752; his death) |
| Children | Jane Fairfax Mildred Sarah |
| Occupation | Planter, Soldier, Politician |
Capt. Lawrence Washington (1718–1752) was an American soldier, planter, politician, and prominent landowner in colonial Virginia. As a founding member of the Ohio Company of Virginia, and a member of the colonial legislature representing Fairfax County, He also founded the town of Alexandria, Virginia on the banks of the Potomac River in 1749.
Washington was the older and beloved half-brother of George Washington, the future President of the United States. He was the first of the family to live in the Mount Vernon estate, which he named after his commanding officer in the War of Jenkins' Ear, Admiral Edward Vernon.
Lawrence is believed to have been born in 1718, the second child of Augustine Washington and Jane Butler (whose first-born son, Butler, died in infancy in 1716.) The family was then living in Westmoreland County, Virginia, along the Potomac River. In 1729, Augustine took Lawrence and younger son Augustine, Jr., to England and enrolled them in the Appleby Grammar School in Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria Augustine would return to Virginia months later and discover that his wife had died, leaving daughter Sarah in the care of the extended Washington family in Westmoreland County. His father remarried in 1731, to a young heiress, Mary Ball.
Lawrence completed his education and returned to Virginia in 1738, to oversee the management of his father's 2,000-plus acre plantation on the Potomac River at Little Hunting Creek (then in Prince William County; after 1742 Fairfax County). In late 1738, Augustine moved his young (second) family to Ferry Farm, which he had recently purchased on the edge of Fredericksburg in King George County. Prince William County Deed books reveal that the following spring, March 1739, Lawrence Washington began to purchase tracts of land bordering the family's Little Hunting Creek estate: the purchase, in his own name, indicates Lawrence had attained his majority (age 21).
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