Did you know?
Last week I highlighted some of the numerous, and unsuccessful efforts George Washington made to sell his properties in Fayette County.
The Library of Congress web site contains tens of thousands of Washington’s handwritten diaries and letters which can easily be found, simply by using the site’s search mechanism. (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mgwquery.html)
“My Lands in Pennsylvania (west of the Laurel-hill) have been so unproductive of every thing but vexation and trouble, that I am resolved to sell them at long or short credit,” Washington wrote in a letter to Charles Simms on Sept. 22, 1786. (http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw2/013/1820170.jpg)
He mentioned in that same letter that he owned property at Washington’s bottom, and “2 or 300 acres at the Gt. (Great) Meadows,” that he’d bought for a “high price.” (He’d bought his property at Great Meadows on Dec. 4, 1770)
He’d obviously had mixed feelings about owning the land we now call Fort Necessity, which had been the site of his crushing defeat at the hands of the French during the French and Indian War.
I tried, but was unsuccessful in finding any of Washington’s contemporaneous notes while taking his stand at the Great Meadows on July 3, 1754.
I did find a long letter Washington wrote to a Virginia politician – William Fairfax – a month after his Great Meadows encounter on Aug. 11, 1754.
Washington had decided to try to take back the fort he’d been chased from. “…the forces should immediately march over the Allegany mountains, either to dispossess the French of their fort, or build one in a proper place,” he wrote.
He then wrote another letter to the Virginia House of Burgesses on Oct. 23, 1754, with the admission he’d failed, but with the promise he’d do better in the future: “Nothing could have given me, and the Officers under my command, greater satisfaction, than to have received the thanks of the House of Burgesses, in so. particular and honour able a manner, for our Behaviour in the late unsuccessful Engagement with the French at the Great Meadows; and we unanimously hope, that our future Conduct in the Service of our Country may entitle us to a continuance of its approbation.” Well, Mr. Washington did go on to serve his country, and in a way in which he’d never dream.
Washington would later make a number of trips to Fayette County.
According to James Hadden’s “A History of Uniontown,” he’d return to fight the French in 1755; he would return to take a measure of his future land holdings in 1770, and again during the fall of 1784. (http://elements.fay-west.com/pdf/haddens/ch31.pdf)
During that 1770 tour, he ventured over to the area in and around what is now Connellsville. He wrote a diary entry dated October 14th, 1770. “Went to see a coalmine not far from his (Captain Crawford’s) house on the banks of the (Youghiogheny) river. The coal seemed of the very best kind, burning freely, and abundance of it,” he wrote.
The latter visit, the one in 1784, was chronicled meticulously by Washington, and can be fully viewed online at the Library of Congress web site.
During that trip, which also took him along old Braddock Road, and onto Washington County, the future “Father of our Country” was simply looking into getting rid of his Pennsylvania lands.
When he arrived in Washington County, he discovered his land had been taken over by squatters.
He then traveled to his land in what is now Perry Township, and onto Uniontown on Sept. 22. He arrived in Uniontown “about dusk,” and he proceeded to lodge at a double log house where the Fayette Bank Building now stands.
Washington’s penchant for detail can been seen because of what he wrote about when he reached Beeson Town (Uniontown). (http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw1b/841/04000.jpg)
“Note: In my equipage Trunk and Canteens-were Madeira and Port Wine – Cherry bounce – Oyl, Mustard -Vinegar and spices of all sorts-Tea, and Sugar in the Camp Kettles (a whole loaf of white sugar broke up, about 7lbs. weight). The Camp Kettles are under a lock, as the Canteens & Trunk also are,” wrote the man who would eventually sign the U.S. Constitution.
And he ended that passage with the flourish of a dedicated outdoorsman. “My fishing lines are in the Canteens.”
But what happens when Washington isn’t quite given to attention to details? The results can be, well, humorous.
I’ll have more on Washington and his numerous exposures to Fayette County next week.
I’ll also explore his complicated feelings about human liberty, while at the same time he owned slaves.