Neddy's Palaver

Our Founding Father’s Fathers

The father of John Washington was a fifth son who became a clergyman and was later expelled from his parish as a royalist during the English Civil War. Taking note of his prospects in his home country, the parson’s son emigrated to colonial Virginia and there he was able to procure a landed estate of 6,000 acres, an achievement nigh impossible to someone of his station in the motherland.

Captain Lawrence Washington, a son of Colonel John, continued the family tradition of supporting the Crown by serving in high government positions in Virginia. He married Mildred Warner, granddaughter of a former acting governor of Virginia and a descendant of the medieval Lords Kyme. According to English peerage law her direct descendants were potential heirs to the Kyme title, which had fallen into disuse since 1381. George Washington was undoubtedly not aware of his access to a title of nobility.

When Captain Lawrence Washington died his son Augustine, future father of the first American president, was only three years old. Augustine’s mother, Mildred, as was customary in those times, promptly remarried, and with her new husband, returned the Washington children to England. Mildred soon died in childbirth and the guardianship of the three Washington orphans fell to their stepfather. This arrangement was contested in court and a cousin of the deceased Captain Lawrence Washington, John Washington, took over and returned to Virginia with the children.

When young George Washington was but eleven, his own father died. Augustine’s widow and children lived with various relatives, spending much time at the Mount Vernon estate that had been passed to George’s elder half-brother, Lawrence Washington, oldest son of Augustine. Lawrence was a worthy father figure for George, having been educated in England and possessed of graceful bearing. He had married a cousin of the Lords Fairfax family and his father-in-law Colonel William Fairfax was quite influential on the young George Washington. It was from links with the Fairfax family that George Washington was tasked as a surveyor of their lands in Virginia.

At the death of Lawrence the landed estate he had inherited from his father totaled more than 10,000 acres. After the deaths of Lawrence’s heirs, Mount Vernon eventually passed to the younger half-brother George Washington. In colonial Virginia the English system of entail was in effect which allowed estates to be kept whole by passing to a single heir. This system was abolished after the Revolution at the insistence of Thomas Jefferson.

Young Washington was ambitious and could have won appointment as a British naval officer through his contacts with nobleman Lord Fairfax, but his mother would have none of it. She was highly possessive of her son and her distress at his leaving her for abroad made English schooling and a hoped for naval career impossible for young George.

And the rest is history, as they say. The Washington Legacy Lives.

Today is the 115th anniversary of the founding of the Daughters of the American Revolution on October 11, 1890, in Washington, D.C. The famous women’s organization continues its dedication to promoting patriotism, preserving American history, and securing America’s future through better education for children. Members of the DAR volunteer more than 55,000 hours annually to veteran patients. They award over $150,000 in scholarships and financial aid each year to students and they support schools for the underprivileged with annual donations exceeding one million dollars.

Today there are 168,000 members who have proven their lineal descent from a patriot of the American Revolution. These women own an entire downtown city block in Washington, D.C. across from the White House. Their buildings, DAR National Headquarters, contain one of the nation’s premier genealogical libraries, one of the foremost collections of pre-industrial American decorative arts, Washington’s largest concert hall, DAR Constitution Hall, and an extensive collection of Americana.

Their objectives are “Historic Preservation, Patriotism, and Education“. Their motto is “God, Home, and Country“. There are DAR chapters in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and international chapters in Australia, Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Happy Birthday, DAR, and many happy returns.

by Merrell Kenworthy

I went searching for an ancestor. I cannot find him still.
He moved around from place to place and did not leave a will.
He married where a courthouse burned. He mended all his fences.
He avoided any man who came to take the U.S. Census.

He always kept his luggage packed, this man who had no fame.
And every twenty years or so, this rascal changed his name.
His parents came from Europe and should be upon some list
of passengers to the U.S.A., but somehow they got missed.

And no one else in this world is searching for this man.
So, I play genea-solitaire to find him if I can.
I’m told he’s buried in a plot, with tombstone he was blessed;
but the weather took the engraving, and some vandals took the rest.

He died before the county clerks decided to keep records.
No Family Bible has emerged, in spite of all my efforts.
To top it off this ancestor, who caused me many groans,
Just to give me one more pain, betrothed a girl named JONES!