The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1902-01-15
THE TOWN OF WASHINGTON.
Georgia Has the Oldest Namesake
of the Father of His Country.

va thC LIN VA LAG NOaAhkh I,
Miss e. L. Andrews contributes the
following article 10 the Washington
(Ga.) Chronicle:
Although u town is tho Oldest
namesake of " the fatlter of his coun-
try" very few people, apparently, arc
aware that President;NNashington once
made a visit 10 this, the Gcst born of
the numerous progeny of geographical
Observation-Disclosures big and
Washlngtons little, Wasningtons rural,
urban and territorial, hal have since
done more or less honor 10 the name.
Yet, such is the fact; the great founder
OF the republic once spent IL night III
our town, and there are people still
living in our midst hat have seen aud
talked with the veritablc colonial dame
that entertained him.
1t was in the year 1890, when
Washington made his great Tour of the
Southern States, embracing Richmond,
Charleston and Savannah, returning
by Augusta ard the interior towns of
the Carolinas and Virginia. Our little
Washington was on the great highway
between Richmond and Augusta. and
thus lty along the route the president
had so carefully mapped out for him
self that he never failed to arrive at
each place where he proposed to halt
on the very day he had fixed There
was living here at that time a Colonel
Allison, who had followed the tide of
emigration that flowed from Virginia,
like so many of our early settlers. He
was a brave Revolutionary officer, "a
member of Westinghouse staff, and a
warm personal friend and 50, when
the great general was passing through
Georgia, what more natural than that
he should arrange to stop at Washing
ton town and spend a night with his
old friend?
Colonel Allison lived in a two story
frame house-qulte a pretentlous build.
ing for those times that used to stand
back of where Woods livery stable
now is, and was burned Gown in the
great fire of 1895 that destroyed the
the Episcopal church and many other
bulldogs on that block. The writer
remembers it as a dilapidatcd old
structure that used to be pointed out,
II the days of her youth, as the Oldest
house III town. THIS fact gave it a
certain interest and seemed to con
stitute its only distinction, as the cir
cumstances that it had once shi tered
so illustrious II guest as the first prcsi-
dent of the republic seems, strangely
enough, to have passed entirely out If
mud. The old house gradually went
f., IN bad to worse, and as the w:iter
last remembers it was Inhabited by
negroes who swarmed within the dlngy
old walls as thick as the population OF
It New York tenement.
Colonel Alison was Il of the oriyi-
nal founders oil the Order Of the Gin
%cinnati, and his certificate Of member
Ship, signed with W~ashington's auto
graph, is now in the possession Of
Captain j. III. Alexander, f Augusta
He left Il widow who lived To a great
aye, and a SOD, Robert, who was the
first husband of Mrs. Barnett, the
mother our houored citizens, DIR. Frank
Willis and the Hon. Samuel Barnett.
Mrs. Allison, whose Ii al EN- pame
was McRae, was very fond of the first
Mrs. Adam Alexander, and Mrs.
Alexander's daughter, Mrs. Clifford
Hull, remembers when a very little
girl having sometimes accompanied
her mother on her visits to the aged
widow. Mrs. Allison owned a set of
china that had been given to her as a
bridal prese 1T b. General Washington,
and just before her death she presented
this set, six cups and saucers, together
with the c~olonel's certificate OF member.
ship in the Cincinnati, TO Mis-. AleXal-
der. AS tho chipa had been used on
her table at the time of Washinyton's
visit it Is certain that he had drunk
from II of the cups, but as there was
no mark by which that particular cup
could be identified, hero-worship.ng
tea drinkers who used any of the six
could 1litter themselves with the pos
sibility that they were drinking after
Washington. Two cups and saucers
of this set are still in existence, one in
the possession of General Z. u. Alex
ander, the other of Mrs. Cooper Pope,
of this lace. The cups are without
handles and Of the shallow bowl shape
familiar In old china, while the saucers
are very deep, as il was the correct
thing in those days to pour tea or coffee
into the sauce and dunk from it,, and
l have no doubt but Washington took
his that way. What a treasure one of
these old relics would be to the Daugh-
tiers of the Revolution.