House £sr Garden 
a large estate of several thousand acres, on 
the Potomac below Alexandria, known as 
Hunting Creek. Lawrence had held a Cap¬ 
tain’s commission under General Wentworth 
and Admiral Vernon in their joint expeditions 
against Cartagena, where the British were 
defeated, and, being an admirer and friend 
of the Admiral’s, he named the place lor him. 
The estate was bordered by the land of the 
Fairfaxes on the north and of the Masons on 
the south. Lawrence, after his marriage with 
Anne Fairfax, made it his home. George 
Washington lived here as a boy under his 
brother’s protection. He was a good deal 
at “ Bel voir,” the Fairfax place. When Lord 
Fairfax came out to live in Virginia, where 
he owned a small principality, he soon made 
a friend of the boy, had him much about, 
looked after his seat a-horseback, taught him 
to ride to hounds over a pretty stiff country, 
added a London touch to his manners, and 
looked into his letters and his politics more 
or less. And the latter probably gave the 
cynical^old man of the world some piquant 
surprises. 
He took Washington, then a boy of six¬ 
teen, to survey his lands upon the Shenan¬ 
doah, and this covered three years ol rough 
work on the frontier. Lord Fairfax built a 
great rambling log house near the junction of 
the Shenandoah with the Potomac, and there 
he lived with his hunters and Indians and a 
great pack of dogs. Washington made several 
visits there later during the old lord’s life, 
and this man who had been one of the wits 
of his day, the friend of Addison and Steele, 
himself an occasional contributor to the 
“ Spectator,” now turned in disgust from the 
old world to end his days a recluse in the 
wilderness of the new, must have left a strong 
impress on the younger mind. 
Washington’s brother Lawrence was also 
a personage, and both Mount Vernon and 
Belvoir were much visited by people of note, 
distinguished travelers and others; so that 
Washington’s social training was an unusually 
broad one, although he never visited the 
mother-country, as did so many young gen¬ 
tlemen of consequence in his day. The 
ownership of Mount Vernon classed him 
THE WALK AROUND THE WEST LAWN 
MT. VERNON 
% 
tj 
4 
r- ; 
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* 
mm* 
465 
