Following his marriage Washington added largely to his estate, both in the neighborhood of Mount Vernon and elsewhere. In 1759 he bought of his friend Bryan Fairfax two hundred and seventy-five acres on Difficult Run, and about the same time from his neighbor, the celebrated George Mason of Gunston Hall, he acquired one hundred acres next that already bought of Darrell. Negotiations entered into with a certain Clifton for the purchase of a tract of one thousand eight hundred six acres called Brents was productive of much annoyance. Clifton agreed in February, 1760, to sell the ground for one thousand one hundred fifty pounds, but later, "under pretence of his wife not consenting to acknowledge her right of dower wanted to disengage himself ... and by his shuffling behavior convinced me of his being the trifling body represented." Washington heard presently that Clifton had sold the land to another man for one thousand two hundred pounds, which fully "unravelled his conduct ... and convinced me that he was nothing less than a thorough paced rascal." Ultimately Washington acquired Brents, but had to pay one thousand two hundred ten pounds for it. During the next few years he acquired other tracts, notably the Posey plantation just below Mount Vernon and later often called by him the Ferry Farm. With it he acquired a ferry to the Maryland shore and a fishery, both of which industries he continued. By 1771 he paid quit rents upon an estate of five thousand five hundred eighteen acres in Fairfax County; on two thousand four hundred ninety-eight acres in Frederick County; on one thousand two hundred fifty acres in King George; on two hundred forty in Hampshire; on two hundred seventy-five in Loudoun; on two thousand six hundred eighty-two in Loudoun Faquier--in all, twelve thousand four hundred sixty-three acres. The quit rent was two shillings and sixpence per hundred acres and amounted to £15.11.7. In addition to these lands in the settled parts of Virginia he also had claims to vast tracts in the unsettled West. For services in the French and Indian War he was given twenty thousand acres of wild land beyond the mountains--a cheap mode of reward, for the Ohio region was to all intents and purposes more remote than Yukon is to-day. Many of his fellow soldiers held their grants so lightly that he was able to buy their claims for almost a song. The feeling that such grants were comparatively worthless was increased by the fact that to become effective they must be located and surveyed, while doubt existed as to whether they would be respected owing to conflicting claims, jurisdictions and proclamations. [Illustration: The Porter's Lodge] [Illustration: Driveway from the Lodge Gate]