Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-07

tween the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies
George William Fairfax was also mem
Der of the surveying party. They went
northwest from Alexandria, crossed the
Blue Ridge through Ashley's Gap Some
say Smokers Cap and passed down into
the valley of Virginia One of their stop
ping places was the lodge of a land bailif
of Lord Fairfax. 1t "a long stone
building one story in height, with dormer
windo VS., two wooden belfries, chimneys
studded with swallow and martin coops
and roof sloping down in the old Vir-
glnla fashion into low projecting caves that
formed veranda the whole length of the
house" On this trip Washington lodged
with Capt. Hite Col. Cresap and Solomon
Hedge, three colonial notables of the from
tier type. On his return to Belvoir he gave
such Subscription of the Shenandoah val
ley that Lord Fairfax determined to remove
from Belvoir and take up a Judgment in
the land bailiffS house near Winchester.
He projected a great manor house to be
called Greenway Court. This great house
was never built, but the name Greenway
Court came to be applied to the rude lodge
where Lord Fairfax dwelt till his death in
the year after Yorktown. Some of the hap
pieSt years of Washington's life We're spent
at Greenway Court. Here he hunted, min
gled with backwoodsmen, Indians and
half-breeds, read the history of England
and essays in the Spectator. 1t is said
that it was through the influence of Lord
Fairfax that Washington was appointed
public surveyor, which office he held for
three years, performing MS duties mostly
in the Shenandoah valley and spending
much of his time at Greenway Court. In
the frontier troubles with the French, Win
chester and Fort Cumberland were much
used by the Americans and English as
bases of operation and this kept Washing
ton closely in touch with his sterling friend
Lord Fairfax. In the Braddock campaign,
Washington having disabled three horses
before reaching Winchester he purchased
others by the way, thus depicting his
purse, which he replenished by loan from
Fairfax" In the election at Winchester,
which resulted in the choosing of Washing
ton for delegate to the house of burgesses,
old Lord Fairfax was of the young
soldiers lusty partisans.
x =
Mr.. Conway, writing of the conflict be-
tween settlers in the wild lands of western
Virginia and the claims of Lord Fairfax,
throws light on the relations between
Washington and the Fairfaxes and between
Mount Vernon and Belvoir: He says:
English lordship meant very little to
these tribes of the western valleys and hills.
Lord Fairfax had been wiser to concede a
wide margin between them and his domain.
AS the Shenandoah and the Potomac with
united force break through the mountains
at Harpers Ferry. so did the barons of the
Potomac and the transmontane democracy
together break through the boundaries of
Fairfaxland and through the foreign power
that had established it.
when in 1875 the Virginia legislature en-
acted that the landholders within the said
district of the northern neck shall be for
ever hereafter eXonerated and discharged
from composition and quitrents, any law,
custom or usage to the contrary notwith-
standing, 1t was the contamination of a
ninety nine years vague struggle between
aristocracy and democracy. And during the
greater part of that time the Washingtons
had been in close relations with the aris-
tocracy.
Looking back to the pre-revolutionary
era, we can now see that the conflicting
forces We're chiefly represented by two fam
lilies which had been pre-emnntly involvd
in the corresponding struggle in England
the Fairfaxes and the 'Washingtons
And of these families two figures stand out
above all others in the light of history
George Washington and Lord Fairfax.
When Lord Fairfax first visited Virginia
George Washington was child OF seven
years. 1t must have been among his ear
lest recolections to have seen the noble
man passing his fathers house on the way
to Belvor. This live lord, owner of all the