Journal of my journey over the mountains: while surveying for Lord Thomas Fairfax, baron of Cameron, in the northern neck of Virginia, beyond the Blue Ridge, in 1747-8.Washington, George
History
Journal of my journey over the mountains: while surveying for Lord Thomas Fairfax, baron of Cameron, in the northern neck of Virginia, beyond the Blue Ridge, in 1747-8.
Washington, George
Shenandoah River Valley (Va. and W. Va.) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Virginia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Washington, George, 1732-1799 -- Diaries; Washington, George, 1732-1799 -- Travel -- Shenandoah River Valley (Va. and W. Va.)
Bryan Fairfax,
and died at Bath in England, April 3, 1787, and was buried in
Wirthlington church. His will appointed George Washington as one of
his executors. His wife survived him until 1812. Her remains were
placed by the side of her husband's.]
[Footnote 4: George Neville, Esq., was among the earliest
planters to settle in the western part of Prince William county,
Va. As early as, or before 1730, he selected a large body of
desirable land lying on the main road by way of Ashby's Gap from
Fredericksburg to Winchester. Here his residence was beautifully
situated on high, healthy and productive land near the head springs
of Bull Run, a tributary of the Occoquan river, and 34 miles
from Fredericksburg, the head of tide water on the Rappahannock
river. Squire Neville, the proprietor of this fine estate, as
he was usually called, was a man of steady and industrious
habits, possessed a fine constitution, gentle in his manners, and
cultured in his tastes, enterprising and thrifty, with a genius
for overcoming such difficulties as always beset the path of the
pioneer in a new country. As the lands to the west of him, and
particularly those in the Shenandoah valley beyond the Blue Ridge,
began to attract settlers the travel on the road past his house
became considerable, and as a matter of accommodation to the public
he opened an ordinary and kept a store for general merchandizing.
Neville's Ordinary was a land mark, and is to be found on Fry and
Jefferson's Map of Virginia, as well as on Governor Pownall's and
other early maps of Virginia. In 1750 Washington surveyed for Mr.
Neville 400 acres of land. By marriage George Neville was related
to the Fairfax family of Virginia. His wife, Ann Burroughs,
was a cousin to Lord Thomas Fairfax of "Greenway Court," the
proprietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia. Squire Neville and
his wife were blessed with a numerous family of healthy sons and
daughters, who inherited the sturdy virtues of their parents, and
who founded families for themselves, and whose descendants are
to be found throughout the southern and western states. Joseph
Neville, son of George, was a prosperous planter in the western
part of Prince William county, Va., in 1760. (See Washington's
Diary.) He served as a colonel in the Revolution, was one of the
commissioners for running the boundary line between Pennsylvania
and Virginia, and was a member of Congress 1793-5; died in Hardy
county, Va., 1819. John Neville, another son, was colonel of the
4th Virginia regiment in the Revolution, and brigadier-general
in the Pennsylvania militia at the close of the war. He was born
in Virginia 26 July, 1731. From his youth he had a fondness for
military affairs and served in the Braddock expedition, and also
in the Dunmore Indian war. He and his brothers were early and
life-long friends of General Washington, the acquaintance beginning
when they were youths. At an early date John Neville took up
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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