Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-02-22
FEW SEE BIRTHPLACE
Home of Washington's Ances-
tors Seldom Visited.
SITE is MARKED BY SHAFT
Bits of Bricks All That Remain Of
House at Wakefield, Va.
DESCENDANTS OWN THE LAND
Present George Washington and
Lawrence Washington, With
Families, Till the Soil.
SITE is MARKED BY SHAT I
DESCENDANTS OWN THE LAND

stream of pilgrims to the death place
and the tomb of George Washington
passes through the gates of Mount Yer
non every day in the year except Sun
day, when the grounds are barred against
tourists. and gentle calm rests upon the
shrine. For every thousand, perhaps
every ten thousand strangers who gaze
reverently or indifferently at the home
and the chamber where the great Wash
ngton passed away, or at the tomb
wherein what is mortal Of him lies, few
stray far away from the humming.
throbbing world as the spot where Wash
ington was born where the bones of
his ancestors lie and about which hVe
many Of his kindred.
Far down the Potomac river in West
moreland county, Va, on a stretch OF
high land, long open, but now growing
up in cedars, and between two creeks
the upper Bridges and the lower Popes,
after landholders OF the remote colonial
age-stands a simple white granite shalt,
erected by the United States government
and inscribed "Washington's Birthplace.
Stands on Site Of House.
1t stands on the site Of the house, long
| ago a ruin in which Washington was
born. An iron picket fence surrounds
the monument, and against it grows a
cluster of large fig bushes, bearing ex-
cellent fruit in the autumn. survivors
from those fig blIshes-or fig trees-Which
grew in the Washington garden. and
which are often mentioned in the olo
chronicles, Scattered through the sur
rounding turf are bits of brick and ma
tive stone that were once part or the
foundation and chimneys of the WASH
ington house.
Tho fold Of the monument is billowed
with old corn burrows and covered with
firm sod, on which cattle Craze in sum-
mer and from which cedars and some
deciduous trees are springing These Old
corn burrows are wonderfully persistent.
for sometimes in the country the trace OF
the pillow is seen in woodland grown TO
good timber since the last grain crop
was cut.
Popes creek, named for Nathaniel Pope,
from whom John Washington, the i'm
migrant, bought the farm about 1860 and
whose daughter he married, thereby add
ing to his acres, is not paltry stream.
Near it's channel to the Potomac 1t forms
a bay, shoal, but as broad as some of the
busy harbors of great cities The navi-
gable part of the stream Uor small sail
ing vessels) reaches inland between tree
shaded banks that are steep and high,
and the unnavigable part extends back
through wood and pineland to the water
shed which guides the flow of streams into
the Potomac or the Rappahannock.
Descendant Owns Land.
The Washington lands are thckly
strewn with fragments of oyster shell.
showing that in recent geologic times it
| was river bottom. Many hundreds of
acres around the monument are owned by
| member of the Washington family
Mrs. John E. Wilson. who was Miss Betty
Washington, granddaughter of William
Augustine Washington. the builder Of
Blenhefm House, an old brick mansion in
habited but somewhat dilapidated, about
three miles from the monument. These
| old Washington lands are still fertile and
productive of good crops of corn and
| wheat.
| \ mile from the monument. in a field
which was this season in corn. but has
| now been drilled to wheat. is an ancient
Washington burial ground, where rest
! the ashes of George Washington's Amer
lean ancestors. The spot was long ruin
| Gus. A broken brick vault and some flat
gravestones cracked. and with their le-
| and weather. lay out in the field, the
spot being indicated by a weedy Jungle
and a gnarled plum tree. The Virginia
Society of Colonial Danes has restored
the little cemetery. inclosing it with a
| stone wall and putting pave of cement
| within and setting the old tombstones to
rights.
Wharf Fast Decaying.
| At point on the Potomac river. near
the mouth Of Bridges creek and about
| half a mile from the cemetery the United
States several years ago built a long
| wharf, at which it was believed river
steamboats, would stop and make it easier
for pilgrims to Wakefield. Because of
some government regulations to which
| river steamboatmen would not subscribe
| the wharf was little used and is now in
decay. The shore near the wharf is a
place where cord wood and paper pulp
| logs Of poplar and gum from the back
country are loaded on small vessels
| The nearest river landing to Washing
| tons birthplace Is Wirt's wharf, in Mad
dox creek, about six miles away. and on
the road from this wharf to Wakefield
| as Washington's birthplace came to be
called by a Washington who came after
the father-one may find living num-
Der of the Washingtons of Wakefield.
They are mainly descended from George
Washington's eldest brother, Augustine
Washington, to whom the Washington
property on Popes creek descended