ollars was
to be paid in cash and the rest in three annual instalments. Richey died
in 1798, and Washington's heirs had difficulties in their attempts to
collect the remainder.

Leaving these legal matters to be disposed of by lawyers, Washington
turned back without visiting his Kanawha or Ohio lands, and on October
fourth reached Mount Vernon, having traveled on horseback about six
hundred eighty miles. One result of his trip was the formation of the
Potomac Company, but this is a subject that lies without the scope of
this book.

[Illustration: The Seed House, Beyond Lay the Vegetable Garden]

[Illustration: One of the Artificial Mounds. The Tree upon It was Set
out by Mrs. Grover Cleveland.]

From that time onward he bought occasional tracts of lands in various
parts of the country or acquired them in discharge of debts. By the
death of his mother he acquired her land on Accokeek Creek in Stafford
County, near where his father had operated an iron furnace.

Washington's landed estate as listed in his will amounted to about sixty
thousand two hundred two acres, besides lots in Washington, Alexandria,
Winchester, Bath, Manchester, Edinburgh and Richmond. Nine thousand two
hundred twenty-seven acres, including Mount Vernon and a tract on Four
Mile Run, he specifically bequeathed to individuals, as he did some of
the lots. The remaining lots and fifty thousand nine hundred
seventy-five acres (some of which land was already conditionally sold)
he directed to be disposed of, together with his live stock, government
bonds and shares held by him in the Potomac Company, the Dismal Swamp
Company, the James River Company and the banks of Columbia and
Alexandria--the whole value of which he conservatively estimated at five
hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The value of the property he
specifically bequeathed, with his slaves, which he directed should be
freed, can only be guessed at, but can hardly have been short of two
hundred and twenty thousand dollars more. In other words, he died
possessed of property worth three-quarters of a million and was the
richest man in America.

Not all of the land that he listed in his will proved of benefit to his
heirs. The title to three thousand fifty-one acres lying on the Little
Miami River in what is now Ohio and valued by him at fifteen thousand
two hundred fifty-five dollars proved defective. In 1790 a law, signed
by himself, had passed Congress requiring the recording of such