John Washington, grandfather of Augustine, distinguished himself in military affairs, and became lieutenant-colonel in the wars against the Indians. He was one of the largest planters in the colony, and became one of the most influential men. In time he became a magistrate and a member of the House of Burgesses. The name of the parish in which he lived--Washington--was derived from him. Augustine Washington, father of George, lived on Pope's Creek when the latter was born, about one-half mile from the Potomac. The house in which George was born was pulled down or burned before the Revolution. The site is now designated by a slab, bearing the inscription: HERE, ON THE 11TH OF FEBRUARY (OLD STYLE), 1732, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN. The slab was placed there by George Washington Parke Custis--his grandson--sixty-seven years ago. Thirty-six years after he performed the grateful act, he published the following account of it in the _Alexandria Gazette_: "In June, 1815, I sailed on my own vessel, the 'Lady of the Lake,' a fine top-sail schooner of ninety tons, accompanied by two gentlemen, Messrs. Lewis and Grimes, bound to Pope's Creek, in the county of Westmoreland, carrying with us a slab of freestone, having the following inscription: HERE, ON THE 11TH OF FEBRUARY, 1732, (OLD STYLE), GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN. "Our pilot approached the Westmoreland shore cautiously (as our vessel drew nearly eight feet of water), and he was but indifferently acquainted with so unfrequented a navigation. "Desirous of making the ceremonial of depositing the stone as imposing as circumstances would permit, we enveloped it in the 'star-spangled banner' of our country, and it was borne to its resting place in the arms of the descendants of four revolutionary patriots and soldiers--SAMUEL LEWIS, son of George 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.