Lewis, a captain in Baylor's
regiment of horse, and a nephew of Washington; WILLIAM GRIMES, the son
of Benjamin Grimes, a gallant and distinguished officer of the
Life-guard; the CAPTAIN of the vessel, the son of a brave soldier
wounded in the battle of Guilford; and GEORGE W. P. CUSTIS, the son of
John Parke Custis, aid-de-camp to the commander-in-chief before
Cambridge and Yorktown.

"We gathered together the bricks of an ancient chimney that once formed
the hearth around which Washington in his infancy had played, and
constructed a rude kind of a pedestal, on which we reverently placed the
FIRST STONE, commending it to the attention and respect of the American
people in general, and to the citizens of Westmoreland in particular.

"Bidding adieu to those who had received us so kindly, we re-embarked
and hoisted our colors, and being provided with a piece of canon and
suitable ammunition, we fired a salute, awakening the echoes that had
slept for ages around the hallowed spot; and while the smoke of our
martial tribute to the birth-place of the _Pater Patriae_ still lingered
on the bosom of the Potomac, we spread our sails to a favoring breeze,
and sped joyously to our homes."

Mr. Paulding, in his life of Washington, describes the place as follows:

"A few scanty relics alone remain to mark the spot, which will ever be
sacred in the eyes of posterity. A clump of old decayed fig trees,
probably coeval with the mansion, yet exists; and a number of vines and
shrubs and flowers still reproduce themselves every year, as if to mark
its site, and flourish among the hallowed ruins. The spot is of the
deepest interest, not only from its associations, but its natural
beauties. It commands a view of the Maryland shore of the Potomac, one
of the most majestic of rivers and of its course for many miles towards
the Chesapeake Bay. An aged gentlemen, still living in the neighborhood,
remembers the house in which Washington was born. It was a low-pitched,
single-storied frame building, with four rooms on the first floor, and
an enormous chimney at each end on the outside. This was the style of
the better sort of houses in those days, and they are still occasionally
seen in the old settlements of Virginia."

Irving says that "the roof was steep, and sloped down into low,
projecting eaves;" so that an artist's eye can readily see the house as
it was.

Let the reader bear in mind that John Washington was the founder of the
Washi