s. The movement to cities did not begin until after
the Industrial Revolution, and people still held the healthy notion that
the country was the proper place in which to live a normal human
existence.

In 1752 Lawrence Washington died. As already stated, he was the
proprietor by inheritance of Mount Vernon, then an estate of two
thousand five hundred acres which had been in the Washington family
since 1674, being a grant from Lord Culpeper. Lawrence had fought
against the Spaniards in the conflict sometimes known as the war of
Jenkins's Ear, and in the disastrous siege of Cartagena had served under
Admiral Vernon, after whom he later named his estate. He married Anne
Fairfax, daughter of Sir William Fairfax, and for her built on his
estate a new residence, containing eight rooms, four to each floor, with
a large chimney at each end.

[Illustration: Mount Vernon, Showing Kitchen to the Left and Covered
Way Leading to It]

[Illustration: _From a painting by T.P. Rossiter and L.R. Mignot_ The
Washington Family] Lawrence Washington was the father of four
children, but only an infant daughter, Sarah, survived him, and she died
soon after him. By the terms of his father's and Lawrence's wills George
Washington, after the death of this child, became the ultimate inheritor
of the Mount Vernon estate, but, contrary to the common idea, Anne
Fairfax Washington, who soon married George Lee, retained a life
interest. On December 17, 1754, however, the Lees executed a deed
granting said life interest to George Washington in consideration of an
annual payment during Anne Lee's lifetime of fifteen thousand pounds of
tobacco or the equivalent in current money[1]. Mrs. Lee died in 1761 and
thereafter Washington owned the estate absolutely. That it was by no
means so valuable at that time as its size would indicate is shown by
the smallness of the, rent he paid, never more than four hundred
sixty-five dollars a year. Many eighty-acre farms rent for that much
to-day and even for more.

[1] From entries in Washington's account book we know that this
equivalent in 1755 was L93.15; during each of the next four years it was
L87.10, and for 1760 it was L81.5.

Up to 1759 Washington was so constantly engaged in fighting the French
and Indians that he had little time and opportunity to look after his
private affairs and in consequence they suffered. In 1757 he wrote from
the Shenandoah Valley to an English agent that he should have some
t