came next to war in those days, as the
occupation of the nobility and gentry. The clergy engaged in it equally
with the laity. The hunting establishment of the Bishop of Durham (who
belonged to the Washington family) was on a princely scale. He had his
forests, chases and parks, with their train of foresters, rangers and
park-keepers. A grand hunt was a splendid pageant, in which all his
barons and knights attended him with horse and hound."

Later, the famous English fox-hunting, in which noblemen engaged with
great pomp and expense, engaged the attention of the Washingtons. We
refer to the fact here, because it will explain certain things connected
with the life and times of our George Washington in Virginia.

Everett says, "It may be mentioned as a somewhat striking fact, and one
I believe not hitherto adverted to, that the families of Washington and
Franklin--the former the great leader of the American Revolution, the
latter not second to any of his patriotic associates--were established
for several generations in the same central county of Northamptonshire,
and within a few miles of each other; the Washingtons at Brighton and
Sulgrave, belonging to the landed gentry of the county, and in the great
civil war supporting the royal side; the Franklins, at the village of
Ecton, living on the produce of a farm of thirty acres, and the earnings
of their trade as blacksmiths, and espousing,--some of them, at least,
and the father and uncle of Benjamin Franklin among the number,--the
principles of the non-conformists. Their respective emigrations, germs
of great events, in history, took place,--that of John Washington, the
great-grandfather of George, in 1657, to loyal Virginia,--that of Josiah
Franklin, the father of Benjamin, about the year 1685, to the metropolis
of Puritan New England."

This brief sketch of the Washington family in the mother country must
suffice. Its history in our country began in 1657, on the West Bank of
the Potomac, about fifty miles from its entrance into Chesapeake Bay, in
Westmoreland County. The two brothers, John and Lawrence, purchased an
estate of several thousand acres there, and erected thereon a
comfortable dwelling. In process of time, John married Miss Anne Pope,
and went to reside on Bridge's Creek. Two sons, Lawrence and John, and a
daughter, were the fruits of his union. Lawrence, the oldest son,
married Mildred Warner, daughter of Colonel Augustus Warner, by whom he
had three chi